


Sing a Requiem

by Continuedinterests



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Because I love that trope, But not in a non-canon kinda way, Character Study, Conversations, Dumbledore is kinda evil, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Harry Potter is a Horcrux, Hermione Kidnaps Harry, Hogwarts Sixth Year, Horcruxes, I'm Bad At Tagging, Sharing a Bed, for his own good, soul journeys
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-16
Updated: 2020-11-02
Packaged: 2021-03-04 22:15:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 23
Words: 73,667
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25303654
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Continuedinterests/pseuds/Continuedinterests
Summary: Harry is a Horcrux, isn’t he?Hermione reads over what she has of her essay so far, ignoring the way her hands have started to shake. She circles some sentences here and there that she thinks might be stronger in a different part of the paper.Don’t be silly. What a strange thought to have.Anyway.Anyway.During 6th year, Hermione has a realization that Harry is a Horcrux while doing some homework in the library. Things spiral out from there.
Relationships: Hermione Granger & Harry Potter & Ron Weasley, Hermione Granger/Harry Potter
Comments: 218
Kudos: 659





	1. Out of this wood do not desire to go: Thou shalt remain here, whether thou wilt or no

**Author's Note:**

> Heeeey. Have yourself an impulse fic! This one is a plot bunny that sprouted in my brain, but I didn't have time for it, so I shoved it far away to a different, often neglected part of my brain, where most creative things go to die. But to my surprise when I started poking around back there out of boredom, there was a whole ass mushroom fic grown there, apparently thriving in the dark neglected parts of my brain. Who knew? Anyway. I hope you all enjoy!

It was getting late, rain pattering against the window of the library in complete dark. Every time Hermione glances out at a particularly vicious sounding gust of wind, she can only see her own face, tired and annoyed, looking back, the desk lantern shimmering behind her.

_Mirrors were thought to be entrances to the world of the Fae for millenia, a belief that existed both in muggle and wizarding societies alike. Even better than a mirror, the thinnest place of access between the worlds was supposed to be a dark reflective glass, water somehow involved with it._

She had read that in a book at some point. Something about common myths between wizards and muggles and where they deviate from each other. The book said the world of the Fae wasn’t real at all, even for wizards.

As she looks back at her pale face, slightly warped by the glass, the darkness of the night turning her eyes black, she wonders if it was somehow true. If it could be real.

_Maybe there is a Fae version of me in there, looking back, dark eyes, fair, hair not as bushy. A prettier, meaner version of me, delighted that I’m so close. And if I knew the words, the order of them, the right movement of my wand - no, this would be ancient magic, before wands, just hands and will - I would be able to switch with her. She would grant my wishes, but at a terrible price._

_But what would my wish be? Voldemort gone? Protection for Harry? Maybe protection for all muggleborns-_

As she thought of all this, the keen worry she always feels flares, and she swallows. She doesn’t want to think of real things, she wants to think of the Fae, of a meaner, prettier version of herself, of what she would want her to do.

She shuffles closer to the window, staring out into the inky blackness through her own eyes.

_I’d wish that Pansy Parkinson would trip on the top of a flight of stairs, tumble down, so that she gets bruises everywhere, so that when she lands she would be arse up, her pants showing to everyone, granny panties, gray and baggy. We’d all laugh, everyone in the hallway, more people coming out of classrooms to come and look._

_I’d wish that Malfoy would say something cruel under his breath, something that makes Harry’s shoulders stiffen, that makes Ron’s ears turn red, something that makes me feel sad that such thoughts exist in a real person. I would turn towards him, arms over my chest, my eyebrow going up in a sarcastic arch like I wish it would, and I would verbally tear him apart. It would be like the slap in third year, but better. Because Malfoy would cry, would run away and really think about what he’s been told for once, have second thoughts about me being second class. Harry and Ron would slap me on the back, Ron in particular would look proud, and Harry’s smile wouldn’t be fake for once._

_I’d wish that Harry would try to do something in that stupid book of his and it would completely back fire, and Slughorn would tsk him, and Harry would have to look down at his burnt cauldron and he would have to admit that I was right all along._

_I’d wish that Lavender would burst into the common room in tears, her foot stomping, Parviti rushing to her side asking what’s wrong. She’d wail to the whole room that Ron dumped her before Parviti drags her away, making shushing sounds, trying to comfort her, but mostly just doing so out of embarrassment. Ron would then enter, and he’d make eye contact with me, and -_

Lightning flashes, a bright jagged light in her eyes that’s still there when she blinks. She shakes her head and looks back at her notes for the potion essay with a sigh. Time to come back to the real world then.

She’s not sure how long she works, words pulling together slowly, slower than she wishes they would be. This essay feels like a trap, like a slowly sinking sand trap, and by the time she’s done she’ll either be eighty or buried to her nose.

She wishes sometimes that she wouldn’t try so hard. Who really cares what Slughorn thinks of her? Of her potions ability? Why does she always get a little thrill out of things like the Slug club? To the way that professors defer to her naturally when the class gets stuck.

_I should get a small percentage of their income, shouldn’t I? The way that I help them teach their classes._

She frowns, flips the page of her book, runs her eyes down it for anything useful.

_Merlin, I’m in a pissy mood. I can be in a pissy mood sometimes, can’t I? At least I’m not taking it out on anyone._

_But really, why should I care, hmm, why should I care about the opinion of Slughorn, when he thinks I’m second best in potions anyway? Just because of Harry and that stupid book and that stupid Half-Blood Prince. What a poncy name, anyway. Besides, he was the one who told Voldemort to make seven Horcruxes-_

She sighs, flips to another page, jots down something promising. She compares it with the information in her notes, has a jolt of realisation. She feels the familiar rush of understanding, and moves to the parchment next her notes, filling in another couple of paragraphs in her two foot essay.

Grinning a little, she rubs at the back of her neck and stretches. 

_Right, I got a little too mean there, even for the mood I’m in. It’s really not Slughorn's fault that Voldemort was terrifying and Voldemort, even at the age of sixteen. I mean, how could he have possibly known that he was serious? And to hold that shame for so long. I was being uncharitable. To say the least._

_But still. To know, to have that idea that the most evil man in the world has -_

_Harry is a Horcrux, isn’t he?_

Hermione reads over what she had of her essay so far, ignoring the way her hands have started to shake. She circles some sentences here and there that she thinks might be stronger in a different part of the paper.

_Don’t be silly. What a strange thought to have. Anyway. Anyway. For Slughorn to have that knowledge in him all that time. To suspect. I wonder if he ever gave thought to what they might be, too? Probably not, as he avoided the topic so strongly-_

_Oh my god, he’s a Horcrux, his connection with Voldemort -_

_No. No._

She clears her throat, blinking rapidly. “No.” She says under her breath. She glances out the window, lightning striking in the distance again, brightening for a second the silhouette of the tops of the trees. She blinks away the after image, turns back to her notes.

She needs a different book for the next part of the essay. Maybe two more paragraphs and she’d be half way done, and that would be good enough for the night. She stands up, grabbing the lantern on the desk and starts looking through the titles on the shelf behind her.

_Oh. That one. No. No. The index says that it is mostly about how mushrooms change them. Ah, maybe this one? It looks promising. I’ll grab another just in case. These two should do._

She sits down, flips to the promising sections of the book. Her heart is still beating fast. And even though she tries, even though the words she’s looking at on the page hold in her mind for a while, she can’t seem to keep them.

_Slughorn. Does he know about Nagini, about Voldemort putting a bit of himself into another living creature? Does he know that’s possible? He clearly knows more about the whole process than I do. I can’t find anything, obviously. Obviously. Would he know? Would he know if it’s possible to somehow accidentally make one? The magic, that ancient magic, it’s always so imprecise, all hands and will. He’s soul would have to have been so unsteady already. The idea of making more than one Horcrux was so unbelievable to Slughorn, what strange things are possible, he probably couldn’t even guess. I couldn’t possibly guess. I couldn’t possibly._

  
Hermione lowers her head in her hands, her mind silent, she can only hear her own breaths, can only feel the heel of her hands pressing against her eyelids, harder and harder, until it’s almost painful, until there are little squiggly bursts, until -

“Miss Granger? The library is closing. Do you want those books to check out?”

She jumps in her seat, turning to stare at Madam Pince blankly. She’s looking back, impatient, her hand on her hip, the other tapping against the bookshelf. Her eyebrows start to rise. “Miss Granger?”

She shakes her head, her shaking hands grabbing her books. “Y-yes Madam. Let me gather my things-”

The librarian gives one stiff nod, glancing her over almost curiously, before she steps away, her unpleasant voice scaring other late night studiers.

Her mind is still empty. She rolls her scrolls, places them neatly next her notes in her bag. Tightens the lid on the inkwells. She carries the books to the check out desk. A magic quill notes the titles and her name.

She wanders the halls. It’s almost curfew. She finds herself leaning against a cold wall in the seven floor.

The sleeve of her cloak bunches as she slides down the rough stone into a lopsided crouch.

“Oh Harry. Harry, no. Please.” Her voice is a terrible broken whisper. She wants to put the words back into her mouth as they leave her. She doesn’t want to speak the evil, in case it becomes true. It can’t be true.

_It all fits. It makes perfect sense, doesn’t it? The prophecy, their connection. Voldemort doesn’t know. Because then he would, what? Kidnap him? Lock him away somewhere. He wouldn’t be trying to make a spectacle of his death, would he? He would be killing himself, as well._

_Neither can live while the other survives._

She blinks against tears that aren’t there. None of this feels quite real. She feels so confused. In all her life, she never wanted to be wrong more than now. She wants to be called paranoid, and an over thinker. She wants exasperated sighs and accusations of hysteria. She wants to be dismissed out of hand.

“Miss Granger? Is everything alright?”

Dumbledore is crouched next to her, his eyes kind and worried, his wiry white eyebrows drawn together gently. He looks so calm, still, and the calm overrides the worry, it even overrides the kindness.

“Harry’s a Horcrux, isn’t he?” Her voice is still the terrible burdened whisper, something jagged and wrong. She said it out loud, the evil is real now. It always was.

Dumbledore’s eyebrows raise. There is another flash of lightning outside, closer now. Thunder rumbles through the hall. Even still, she doesn’t miss the way that for a second, for just a split second, there is true agony in his eyes.

And then it is all calmness. Calmness over agony, calmness over nothing.

“No, he is not, Ms. Granger. But let us discuss this terrible theory together. Maybe I will be able help alleviate these dreadful fears.”

Hermione stares up at him.

This is what she wanted, isn’t it?

She slowly stands, Dumbledore gently helping her up by the elbow, gently guiding her to his office.

They glide up, Hermione processing all the trinkets, all the gold and purple, just like Harry said, just like she imagined it to be, but more, before Dumbledore settles her in a comfortable high backed armchair.

He sits, his withered black fingertips pushing against his healthy ones. “I am surprised by this idea of yours, I must admit. But the longer I think on it, the more I can see how you might reach that conclusion, though it is erroneous. But please, tell me how you arrived there? First, however, would you like some tea? Or some chocolate? Oh dear, this is shock-o-choc though, has chilli powder, which might not be helpful. Or maybe it will? I couldn’t decide that for you, obviously. Would you like some shock-o-choc?”

Hermione shakes her head, feeling a little like Alice in Wonderland.

“Tea then?”

She shakes her head again.

“Very well. Please explain.”

She takes a deep breath, can only think of herself in the dark class, all pale and warped.

  
She wants to be wrong. “I- It fits, doesn’t it? The prophecy-”

“I did not think you held much by prophecy.”

She stares at him, all that calmness. “I don’t really. But, still, it seems to be relevant-”

“It is only relevant because Voldemort makes it so.”

She blinks at him. “Yes. True. But, also, their connection-”

“Is indeed mysterious. But not one of a soul, but one of deep magic. One cannot make a Horcrux by accident, Ms. Granger.”

She licks her lips, feeling flustered. The lighting in his office is dim, somewhat surreal. Not in the way that Trelawney’s classroom is, forced and showy, but somehow like stepping into a fairy-tale. Like looking into the world of dark glass.

“I had that thought too. But I thought. I mean, he is the first to make so many, isn’t he? So we can’t know-”

“We can know enough to know that he wouldn’t have made one on accident.”

She stares at him more. She had wanted to be dismissed out of hand, but apparently she is also bad at it. “But you told Harry that we are dealing with magics we’ve never seen before. The mix of his mother’s love, Voldemort’s curse backfiring, the number of fragments of his soul. Have you really never considered that their connection might be because of Voldemort’s soul fragmenting again? If it was just complex magic, why are Harry’s visions tied to Voldemort’s emotions instead of his magic? I mean, if it was a magic connection, then should they feel each other most when doing powerful magic rather than-”

“What is magic, at the end of the day, but our emotions?” Dumbledore’s looking at her over his half moon spectacles. He looks like a philosopher, like a robed, tall, clean reincarnation of Socrates, all questions and patience. And calmness. So calm.

“It -it’s also a bunch of other stuff. Energy. Will. Intent. Something in us that manifests-”

“And can that something not also be ripped away? Can that something not be tethered to someone else?”

“But that something else is the soul. It’s been thought to be so, at least-”

Dumbledore sighs, stands and circles the desk, leans against it. “Ms. Granger. You can not accidentally make a Horcrux. The steps involved are complex and horrific. Voldemort would never have made Harry a Horcrux intentionally, and you can’t make ones otherwise. Tell me, do you wish Mr. Potter to be a Horcrux?”

“Of course not. There very idea is, is too-”

“Then be happy, because he is not one.”

Hermione wants to believe him. She wants to.

“Good. Good then. Thank you Professor. The idea struck me suddenly, and, and wouldn’t let go. It was too much to even - even really consider. But. I really don’t know how Horcruxes are made. I really did think that maybe it would be too much to be an accident. Splitting your soul, I mean. But. then. It’s all so uncertain anyway. All of this between them. So. I’m really very happy to hear that that isn’t possible at all.”

Dumbledore smiles at her, a short one, but one that crinkles at the corners of his eyes.

She feels better, despite herself.

“Well then, it has gotten quite late. It’s best that you head off to bed. I’m afraid that you’ve missed curfew. Please take this note should any professor or Filch interfere with your return.”

He taps his wand against a small piece of parchment, which rolls itself, a purple ribbon tying around it.

She leaves, down the spiral staircase, through the empty quiet halls. The storm seems to be over, the moon shining out between clouds.

There are no professors or mean cats or mean petty men on the way back.

She slides in through the entryway. The common room is mostly empty. There is a seventh year, scribbling rapidly, muttering insanely to himself, his tie a wide loop around his neck. There’s a first year sleeping curled up in a large arm chair in the corner, a spellbook sliding slowly out of his grasp. And then there’s Harry, sitting low on a sofa in front of the fire, staring with a longing sort of look, his eyes tracing the flames.

He starts a little as she sits next to him.

“Wow, Hermione, did you just get in? It’s well past curfew.” He’s grinning at her, a question in his eyes, a hint of a mischievous smile on his lips.

“I’d wish you’d stop doing that.” Her voice is sharper than she means, than she feels. She feels almost as surprised as Harry does, by the look on his face.

His smile is gone, but the question is still there. “Doing what? Sitting here by the fire-”

“Smiling, like - like -”

“You want me to stop smiling? Blimey Hermione, I know I’m irritating you with the Half-Blood-”

“Smiling like you’re a regular sixteen year old boy. Like you only have Snape, and Malfoy, and, and Quidditch to worry about. Like the biggest problem on your mind is whether or not Ginny and Dean are going to break up.” Her voice comes out a harsh hiss, a mean whisper, desperate and tired.

Harry’s frowning at her now, his arms tight around his chest. “Oh that’s rich coming from you. Attack any blokes with birds lately, have you?”

She swallows, nods, pushes her hair behind her ears. “Fair.”

Harry’s arms loosen a little. He looks lost, it’s not like her to just admit she’s wrong. “I don’t know what you want from me. Would you like it to be like last year? I was such a moody git, I just made everything worse. Now, Now, I have time with my friends to worry about things I should be worried about. Like whether you and Ron are ever going to be normal again, for example. Dumbledore’s keeping me on track with the bigger picture, so I-”

“He’s not.”

“He’s not what?”

“Keeping you on track, not really. I - I saw him. He - he-” There’s a lump in her throat, a fire burning up it, to her eyes, to her sinuses. The moon is shining behind him, a faint white light, touching his cheek. She lets out a long breath that folds in on itself, despite her best effort, and condenses into a sob. She stares at the moon, lightly touching his face, which looks concerned, his arms uncrossed completely now, his hands moving towards her, hesitating, stopping, falling back in his lap.

“He lied to me. He-he looked me in the eye and lied. I know it.”

“Wait, who are we talking about? Are you saying that Dumbledore lied?”

“Dumbledore. Harry. Harry.”

The moon was so bright now, not quite full, a sliver missing. It will be time for Slughorn to harvest the flaxseed soon.

Harry’s leaning in closer now, eyebrows furrowed.

“You’re a Horcrux, Harry.”


	2. Feed'st thy light's flame with self-substantial fuel, Making a famine where abundance lies, Thyself thy foe, to thy sweet self too cruel.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heeey. Thank you for the wonderful welcome to this fic, so far. I hope that all doesn't lead to disappointment. Just a heads up, I do enjoy a good angst, but I also enjoy not lingering forever in it. So don't fear, this won't be the tone of the whole fic. But I guess I just want to explore this part of the story that was kind of glossed over in the books. Dumbledore's betrayal, Harry's heartbreaking walk into the woods, he's willingness to self-sacrifice. It's what makes him a hero, after all. But I also can't help but think of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, of her bitterness at the concept of her own death that first season. Also, what is love? Where does that loyalty fall, where do things really become about the greater good over the pain of individual loss? So I wanted to make a light and cheery fic about it. Here we areee.
> 
> An aside. I do like to have extra space between my paragraphs and lines. The first time I saw it in a fic, I found it kind of off putting. But then I got used to it, and now I prefer it. It all looks cluttered to me otherwise.

He shakes his head and stands up. He puts his hands on his hips and lets out a long breath. Then another. There’s silence for a few minutes. She can’t seem to make herself look up at his face. He’s not wearing his robes, his trim figure easier to see, the sleeves of his long white shirt are rolled. There’s a smudge of ink on his forearm. “Okay.”

He’s looking down at her, grief bright in his eyes, but something hard about his mouth. “Okay.”

“Okay?” Now she’s lost. She knows his face better than her own, but can’t tell what this means.

He nods, reaches out, pulls her up by her elbows.

He used to be shorter than her, all the way through most of 4th year. Not much, maybe always an inch or two. But by the time fifth year rolled around, he was two or three inches taller. It always made her pause when she noticed. Some part of her didn’t expect it. Like his smallness was as much a part of him as his hair, or his glasses, or his scar.

And this year he was a good half foot taller, all lanky, surprising, like a bird in shallow water that stands to show long legs, so that it’s so much bigger than she thought.

His shoulders are wider, his voice deeper. But he’s still so much the boy she knew, that in moments like this, him standing over her, wide hands on her elbows, she feels so thrown.

“Yes. Okay.” He turns her, starts moving her towards the girl’s staircase.

She spins, so that his hands are now on her upper arms. “You don’t believe me.”

He grits his teeth. The 7th year is still scribbling, the first year’s book has fallen to the floor at some point.

“I do.”

“Then we need to talk, we need to plan.”

He’s face is unreadable. He starts walking her backwards, slowly, so that she doesn’t stumble. “No, we don’t.”

“We don’t? How could we not? I don’t understand-” The back of her heels hit the first step of the staircase, but she doesn’t move up onto it. Harry instead moves in closer, so that they are standing only inches apart. She doesn’t remember, isn’t sure of, the last time she was so close to him.

“This doesn’t change anything, Hermione. Not really.”

The thought of that steals her breath away, so that she can only stare up at his grief stricken face. He stares back down at her, his hands hot through the fabric of her shirt.

She doesn’t understand but she knows it’s not good. “It changes absolutely everything.”

His mouth twitches. “For you, yeah, I guess it does.”

He lets her go. Takes a step back, then another, stuffs his hands into his pockets and spins on his heel, takes swift long strides to the boy’s dorm.

“Harry. Please.”

But he’s already gone.

She doesn’t sleep that night. She watches the white pale light of the moon slide across her bed, across the floor, watches it fade away entirely as the brightness of the morning creeps into the room.

At some point in the night, she stops arguing with herself, with it. Instead she sits in it, like a tea steeping. They need to plan. She has to make him see.

She pauses by the doorway to the great hall, other students walking past, chattering. Harry is sitting with Ron. He’s smiling, his eyes watching as Ron gestures with his fork, dodging a bit of pancake as it flings off it. Ron pauses, they both laugh.

She can’t understand why he’s here. Yes she can. If it was the dark glass Harry, the Fae Harry, meaner and prettier than this one, he would have left easily. He would have spat at Dumbledore’s feet. He would have taken his money and left the country.

But her Harry is going to sit here, in this slowly filling hall, and do his fake smile.

She finds herself slowly walking up to them, Ron glancing up and waving at her, dropping his hand as her eyes won’t leave Harry’s face.

His stupid face, with his stupid fake smile. He’s not looking at her.

She flops down in the seat next to him, but he still won’t look at her.

“Hermione, why are you staring at him like that? You look terrible by the way. Did you sleep at all?”

Ron’s voice cuts through, always a little careless.

“Glad to know that I look terrible.” She still hasn’t looked away, he only glances at her, at Ron’s remark, with a frown.

Ron gapes, his hands twisting in his linen napkin. “I don’t mean that you look terrible in a general way. I mean you don’t look well.”

She sighs, twists so that she’s straddling the bench, so that she’s facing him completely. So that he can no longer not look at her.

He’s frowning, a pleading expression on his face. He doesn’t want Ron to know.

“We have to plan, Harry.”

“No we don’t.”

“What are you talking about? Plan for what?”

“How can you say that? What are you going to do, just go along with it?”

“Of course.”

“Of course? Of course?”

“Don’t do this. Don’t make this harder-”

“I’m not the one making this hard.”

“Blimey, what are you two talking about? The study plan for that massive potions essay? Because I have to say, I’m with Harry on this one-”

“You are the one making this hard, Hermione. You don’t have to deal with it at all if you don’t want to. I wouldn’t blame you. Not at all. Just go about your life, yeah? And I’ll go about mine.”

“Go about my life? You want me to, to, what? Abandon you? And what life? You don’t plan to go about your life, you plan to go about your death-”

“Death? What? What are you guys-”

“C’mon Hermione. How did you think this was going to end? Did you think I’d pop over and zap him after doing away with bits of his soul first? It was never going to be easy-”

“I-I mean, I’m not saying that you should give up, I guess, but we can’t, we need to think about how else, I mean, what else we can do, to, to fix this-”

“Merlin, guys, I think we should all finish this conversation somewhere else, no?”

Harry and Hermione look over at Ron, at his nervous face, at the students who are glancing curiously at Hermione’s improper seating, at the intensity of their faces. Ginny, down the table from them, is openly leaning over her plate, her eyebrows raised in worry.

Hermione paces outside of the room of requirement.

_We need a place to talk where no one can hear us._

_We need a place to talk where no one can hear us._

_We need a place to talk where no one can hear us._

The room is a light stone, no windows, pretend or otherwise. Light seems to come from the ceiling stones, a gentle glow that reminds her of her long night watching the moon. There are three chairs, stiff and black. And that’s it.

They sit, Harry looking down at his hands, Hermione staring at him, Ron glancing between.

“Alright, would one of you please tell me what’s going on?”

“Ron. It’s. It’s not that big of a deal.”

“Harry’s a Horcrux.”

“Wha?”

“He’s one of Voldemort’s bleeding, blasted, Horcruxes!” She finds herself standing, her hands in her hair. It feels like every time she says it, it hurts worse.

Ron’s mouth drops open, he stares at the floor. Harry stands too. His shoulders are square. He looks like he always does, he looks like he’s going to break into Umbridge's office. He looks like he’s going to charge The Ministry, like he’s going to battle a Basilisk.

He looks like he’s going to walk bravely off into his death.

“You idiot. You absolute moron.”

“Hermione.”

“No. No. You- there’s a huge difference between giving a good fight in a battle you might win, but understand you might lose, and walking off into a suicide mission. Do you want to die, huh? Is that what this is? Are you-”

“No! No! I don’t want to fucking die. I don’t want-” His voice breaks, his shoulders rounding, just a little.

In this dark world she now lives in, it seems somehow fitting that she would see so much hope in the defeated posture of her best friend.

“You are only sixteen years old! You’re a kid, you have your whole life ahead of you-”

“Shut up, I-”

“Do you not want to get your N.E.W.T.s? Do you not want to get a job, have your own family, live, eat, eat blasted treacle tarts anymore-”

“SHUT UP!” His hands are clenched. He takes a step closer to her, his face red. She can’t say that she’s missed his screaming spells, but she prefers them endlessly to this apathy that he’s settled on.

“That was never going to happen anyway! Don’t you see? The bastard is after me. He’s never going to let me do any of those things. He can’t even let me go a bleeding year at school with out coming for me. What? Did you think that he was going to let me get a job at the Ministry? Go on holiday to, fucking, I don’t know, France, get a girlfriend-”

“This isn’t on you. It’s not. We can figure out how to get that soul bit out. We can talk to Dumbledore, we can - we can-”

She covers her eyes with her hands, her mouth trembling. They can’t go to Dumbledore. He knows, he knows and he plans to let it happen, he’ll lie forever. He’s a traitor. He doesn’t know how to get the soul bit out. He had anguish in his eyes, but he covered it with calmness.

She lets out a sob.

She feels fingers gently pull at her wrists, calloused thumbs move up her hands, until they’re in her palms, pulling them away from her face.

Harry looks so sad. “Dumbledore’s dying.”

“What?”

She wants to go back to the library last night, to the fun thoughts of her shallow, mean self winning.

She used to have a time turner. She would go back and stare at her dark eyes through the glass and wish, more than anything else, that she would just not think. Not think for the next few hours. Let her mind puzzle over complex potions instead. Organise other people’s thoughts into her words, so that she can learn them.

Harry swallows, shakes his head. His voice reminds her of her own, last night, as she told Dumbledore the truth, crouched together in the hallway.

“He-he’s dying, I know it. I don’t - I don’t know when. I don’t know how long he has. But. He’s telling me all this right now for a reason. He’s been gone so much. He’s in a rush. I don’t think he has long. I guess, in a way, neither do I. You know it, don’t you? The moment Dumbledore is gone, this is all over. It will all have to end.”

She doesn’t know it. “I don’t know it. I don’t.”

They stare at each other, Harry’s eyes wide and desperate, Hermione’s own shoulders squaring.

“That’s why you’ve been this way this whole year. So easy going, so earnest. You never planned to live. Dumbledore is your general and you are a young idealistic boy, gun in hand, shirt bright red, ready to march, ready to pretend that you will at least get to bayonet an enemy before you’re inevitably shot through the stomach by a musket.”

He grins at her a little. “Why the nineteenth century imagery?”

“I-I’ve been reading a lot of Jane Austen lately. Don’t distract me. You don’t see any folly in any of this thinking, do you? You’ll just proudly march on?

He steps away from her, his hands cupping his elbows. “Ever since I heard the prophecy, I knew it wasn’t going to end well. I’m not particularly good at magic. Despite how stupid he is about so much, he’s not stupid-stupid, Voldemort, is he? He’s not going to wait around while I get better at magic. I was never. I wasn’t going to win against him, but he’s not giving me much of a choice in having that fight, is he? And if anything else, I’m not a coward. I won’t run from him. So, I guess it doesn’t make much of a difference. That’s what I mean by that. It doesn’t mean much that it’s certain I have to die now. I-” He sits down, rubbing his face with his hands.

Ron has been frozen in the same way this whole time.

Harry’s voice is normal. Really normal. For the first time in a long time, he sounds like himself. No longer boiling mad, no longer this incomplete cheerfulness. She hasn’t realised, until just now, how much she has missed him.

“I suppose you won’t like to hear this much. And that’s understandable. But. I feel, I don’t know, relieved? Like, I knew I was going to die anyway. But now, now there’s a real purpose. If Dumbledore and I can get rid of the Horcruxes, and then I go and face him as he will inevitably insist on, it will matter, really matter when I die. And then maybe Dumbledore, if he has time, or someone else better at all this than me, can go and finish him off. It all seems to work out to me.”

She sits too. There is an overwhelming something clouding in her mind, and for a moment her thoughts skitter away, as though for protection. She considers the shadow of her leg, the one stretched out in front of her as she sits in a slouched position, one shoulder resting the back of her chair. The ambient ceiling light makes it so there are four pale shadows directly below it, in every direction. It makes her think of the lighting in this Michelin Starred restaurant she went to in Spain with her parents. She loves them, but they have always been a little snobby, really. Always so proud of her intelligence, always bringing her to their friends in this country or that country. She grew up so spoiled and so insecure all at once. 

She wonders what they would think if they knew. Knew she was here, not studying magic, not studying anything. Just contemplating predestined war, her friends glorified suicide, her headmaster, not the archetype of the friendly wise magician, not Gandalf, but instead a planner. A chess player, whose players are colored white, but his eyes still contemplate their worth just as the player pushing the black do.

“Sirius’s death really did a number on you, huh?” Ron’s voice is scratchy, he clears it, sits up straight.

Harry’s head snaps over to him. He scoffs. “What?”

Ron glances over at her. He looks older now, different than he did walking into the room.

“I thought it was strange. I thought it was odd that you seemed to process Sirius’s death so easily. You hardly brought it up. I was prepared, we both were, weren’t we, Hermione? We were prepared to help you grieve. But you seemed...fine. Different. Off, maybe. But I was just happy that you weren’t biting our heads off all the time. And then, when you told us about the prophecy, you were so calm. I thought maybe Dumbledore had talked to you, that night you went and bothered Slughorn into teaching. I thought maybe. I don’t know. I thought he would have your back, and that was enough to calm you. When you said you had classes with him. I don’t know. I don’t know. I just wanted you to be okay. I wanted you to be okay after Sirius’s death. I wanted Dumbledore to handle the prophecy. I wanted. But. No. You’re not okay.”

Harry’s frowning at him, there’s something brittle now, about his face. He looks exhausted. “This isn’t about Sirius.”

“No. You’re right mate. Completely unrelated. You didn’t watch a classmate die, and then have that all thrown back in your face for a whole year. You didn’t watch your godfather die and then get told that you had to fight the monster then killed your parents until death. I'm sure none of that has had any impact on your mental state. I’m so sorry, Harry. I’m sorry that I ignored it, that I pretended I couldn’t see it.”

_Since when did Ron - emotional range of a - how -_

Something’s tickling her cheek. She raises her finger, touches it, and starts to find it wet. She’s crying, silently, painfully. Harry glances at her. Glances at Ron. Then he stares at the ceiling, blinking slowly. “I know what I need to do. I’m sorry to hurt you both. I, more than anything, I’m really sorry about that. But we have to move forward now. You have to choose. Will you help me? Or will this be it.”

Ron’s standing now. “Help you what? Kill yourself? Get bent.”

Harry grins slightly. “Help me defeat Voldemort, arsehole.”

He’s standing over him now. He looks furious, looks even more furious when Harry’s small grin doesn’t dissipate upon seeing him that way. “Help you defeat him by you dying? No. Don’t think I will.”

Harry’s small grin slips away and he nods, his expression empty. “Okay. Fair. I understand.”

Ron’s still standing over him, his ears red, his cheeks red. He looks like he’s going to scream, or maybe cry. He clenches and unclenches his fists. Harry doesn’t look at him.

Ron grabs him by the front of his robes, pulls him up. Harry looks surprised, reaching to pull Ron’s hands off him, but Ron let’s go just as suddenly as he pulled him up. He raises his hand and pushes Harry’s face. It’s a strange move, not quite a slap, not quite a punch. It’s like Harry’s face is a spider, and he just wanted to knock it away.

Harry’s head snaps to the side, his glasses flying off, skidding and tumbling across the floor. Ron shoves him away from him, makes a choking sound, and leaves.

Hermione’s standing now too. Harry is still, his hand on his cheek. She moves across the room, picks up the glasses, walks over to him.

He grins at her. A lopsided one, his hand still on his cheek. “This is all very dramatic.”

She snorts. Taps his glasses to repair them for some innumerable time in their friendship. She takes his hand from his cheek, slides his glasses back on, stands on her toes, and kisses the growing red mark there.

“I need time to think.”

Again his small grin slips away, all empty, as she turns and leaves.


	3. We are such stuff as dreams are made on, and our little life is rounded with a sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey hey. I went for a different tone this chapter, but am not sure of its success. I'm very curious how it all reads to you all. Thanks again for the great welcome this fic has received so far!

Ron won’t look at him.

That’s okay. Really. He kind of wants this. It’ll be so much easier.

He definitely prefers it to whatever the hell Hermione’s doing. She sits next to him, going about her business more or less as usual. But then, every once and awhile she’ll turn to stare at him like something out of a horror film. All slow head tilts and narrow eyes. Prolonged eye contact. It sort of freaks him out. He wonders sometimes if the trauma of it all has her considering murdering him. Like a control thing. Like if Harry is committed to dying for the cause, then she’ll just kill him first or something.

It’s a ridiculous thought.

Hermione wouldn’t do that.

She is, however, staring at him now with narrow eyes, the knife in her hand twirling on it’s point.

“Uh. So. How - How’s the potions essay going? I saw in the common room the other day that you had maybe 5 feet on it. Which. Really. Hermione, would it kill you to maybe lower the bar for the rest of us a little?”

Hermione continues to frown at him, the knife twirling faster.

“That’s it. What? What are you doing? Are you going to stab me or something?”

She pauses, slaps the knife down on her empty plate with a clatter. “What do you care?”

“What do I care? I don’t know, I guess I’m an odd sort of fellow, not wanting to be stabbed by my best friend while I’m eating some rashers. But I guess everyone’s different.”

She stands, slipping her bag around her shoulders. “No. Why would you care about Slughorn’s essay? You have bigger plans.”

He watches her go, feeling like all the space between his organs is covered in a layer of sand, and they rub and rub against each other, and everything is irritating.

He really wishes Hermione would leave him alone. But he can’t bring himself to ignore her.

“What on earth happened? Ron looks a bit like he did in fourth year, and Hermione looks like well, frankly, like she wants to murder you.”

Ginny is sliding into the empty seat Hemione just left.

He makes a broad gesture he’s not fully sure the meaning of. “Right? Right? I swear, I think she’s going to stab me. Yesterday she eye’d me at the top of a flight of stairs. Just stared, like she’s projecting the velocity she would have to hit me at in order for me to tumble most accurately to my death.”

Ginny tosses her long hair over her shoulder. He enjoys a second of watching it shimmer as it falls down her back. “Well? What did you do?”

He frowns, stabbing a bit of egg with his fork. “Hey. Why are you assuming I did something?”

“Because if it was just Ron being a berk again, Hermione wouldn’t look like she’s thinking of good spots to hide your body.”

He taps his fork against his plate. “It’s complicated.”

Ginny tilts her head, her eyes now narrowing too. He seems to be inspiring that in people lately.

“You three finally start on that love triangle the whole school has been betting on since third year?”

He gasps, surprised, and chokes on some sausage he just stuffed into his mouth. It’s seriously stuck in there. He gasps for air, feeling ridiculous and then a little panicked when none comes.

Ginny watches him flail with a slowly sinking smile. “I expected a reaction, but this is a little much.”

Harry gestures to his throat, but Ginny just squints like he's a particularly inept mime.

“I believe he’s choking, if the red color of his skin and bulging eyes are anything to go by.” Luna’s there, gestures with her wand, mutters something under her breath, and suddenly a slimy wad of meat flings from his mouth to some place unknown.

Harry coughs, gasping painfully, leans his head against the table. Ginny has her hands over her mouth, her eyes wide. “Oh god. I’m so sorry. I-I didn’t realise-”

“Don’t be sorry Ginny. They’ve taken so long to get to it, I don’t think anybody really believed anymore that it would happen.”

“No-Luna, I, that’s-”

“That’s right.” His voice is mostly a wheeze.

Ginny and Luna turn to look at him. The Great Hall is slowly emptying, some students going to pick up something they need before their next class, some leaving to finish last second homework. Others are like them, in little groups, chatting. They’re morning people.

Harry isn’t a morning person, but he does feel a certain strike of inspiration that doesn’t usually happen to him until around the time he should be falling asleep, or until there’s a hundred dementors or a giant spider or something bearing down on him.

He wipes at his mouth with a napkin, takes a few gulps of water. “I don’t want to get into it. But yeah. Yes. It-it’s that.”

Luna and Ginny stare at him with remarkably similar expressions. Eyes wide, mouths slightly open, arms dangling by their sides.

He thinks maybe they would have looked less shocked if he had started cackling before poofing away into a cloud of black smoke, only to reappear as a large moth with red eyes, calling himself Lord Voldemoth.

He didn’t sleep much last night. Not everything is making sense. But still. He feels pretty sure about this plan, as he grabs his bag and walks around their frozen frames. He takes the stairs double time, heading to Transfiguration.

_If I keep it vague enough, people will draw their own conclusions about all the weirdness around us. I know Dumbledore’s an eavesdropping gossip. Maybe it will throw him too. Maybe. I don’t know. I just don’t want him to know for certain that Ron and Hermione know for certain. That I know for certain._

_And why is that, Mr. Potter?_ This voice in his head sounds remarkably like Snape.

_Because. Because._

Harry pulls back a chair in the middle row of desks in the Transfiguration classroom, giving a short grin to McGonagall, who is writing something at her desk. No one else is there yet. She just shakes her head.

He pulls out his completed essay that’s due today, glances it over, notices a spelling mistake.

_Because then we would have to talk about how we plan for me to die, and that hurts my little feelings some. So I’d rather not._

He taps his wand against the word, watches it correct itself.

He turns to look at the wide windows of the classroom. The sky looks like a child’s Ice Lolly, a sweet blue color, thin white clouds pulling over here and there, like streaks of ice.

It looks refreshing.

He allows himself, for a moment, to imagine putting his wand to his essay, to light it on fire, to watch as it burns on his desk. He imagines putting one foot on his desk, pulling his leg up to match it, so that he’s standing on it. He would put one foot on the next desk, push back with his other, and then he’d be running. He’d be running across the desks and they’d make awful and satisfying squeaking and grinding sounds as he goes. And then he’d jump into the air. He would feel pain, just for a second, as he breaks through the glass, until he’s fully outside. Until he’s free, joining all that sweet looking blue.

“So. Mr. Potter. How did your essay go, do you think?”

He snaps back down, with a thump he hears somewhere in the back of his mind, all at once. McGonagall has stopped writing, the large black feather of the quill back in it’s holder.

The smile he has practised comes easily to his face. “It wasn’t too bad. I don’t think I got stuck on anything. I mean, don’t expect anything groundbreaking, of course. Or, you know, Hermione’s level. But decent. Pretty decent.”

She gives him a grim sort of smile as some of the class starts to trickle in. “Ah yes. Reach for the stars Mr. Potter.”

Harry shrugs, his grin folding in half. “Only for you, Professor.”

McGonagall huffs.

He tries not to notice how she notices that Ron and Hermione enter together, their faces serious, their voices very low, and they don’t sit next to him.

He’s like a little island, space all around him. People are passing notes, comparing essays, whispering as the class waits to get started. But he is surrounded by silence. The waves and particles of noise, of interaction, fade away before they reach his shore.

_Please visit us at Harry Potter Island. Come for Insomnia, stay for the guarantee of death._

God, he needs to take a nap. Or something.

And so it goes. Him as his island. Hermione floating menacingly on the edges. Ron on a battleship in other waters.

Ginny stares at him one evening after she had broken up with Dean suddenly, earlier in the day. It’s a long stare. She wanted him to know she was staring. It’s right after dinner. She’s in the entryway, her arms crossed over her chest, listening with half an ear as one of her many friends gestures widely about something, telling a story.

She stares at him, long and sad. She gives him a small wink, blows a small kiss, and waves goodbye. He supposes she’s not going to want to muck around with this love triangle he’s been hinting at.

He sits out on the lawn until the light begins to fade, until Flich bellows at him and a few others to get their arses indoors.

Bitterness slows his steps as he walks up the staircases. Ideally. Ideally he wouldn’t have had so much space to die alone. He had hoped to be a good friend as long as he could. And now there seemed to be nothing in the long dark hallway between him and however Voldemort is going to kill him.

He doesn’t want to go to the common room, doesn’t want to write a hasty conclusion to that monstrous essay Slughorn assigned a small life time ago. He doesn’t want to ignore the whispers, the rumours of his and Ron and Hermione’s falling out. Rumors he has helped spread.

He fingers the watery fabric of the clock in his pocket, but he doesn’t want to be invisible. Not right now.

He wanders the halls. The portraits move from one place to another. The ghosts walk past. He’s alone. Truly alone.

“Harry. You look, dare I say, mournful.” Dumbledore’s there. He’s standing in the doorway of a room Harry’s never noticed before, a strange light visible only for a second before he closes the door behind him. It disappears as he steps away.

He doesn’t know what time it is, but his feet hurt a little. He might have been walking a while.

“I had a most interesting conversation with Ms. Granger the other night. Did she perchance talk to you about it?”

Harry smiles to himself. “Yes. She said she thought I might be a, well, you know, one of His special little nuggets.”

Dumbledore grins. “What did you think of this thought of hers?”

He learned in primary school that triangles are the strongest shape. The hardest to break down, the hardest to unbalance. The same holds true for magic. The most stable potions have ingredients in divisions of three, the most long lasting transfiguration spells work by changing three things at once. He had thought, for a long time, that Dumbledore was on his side. But he knows better now, can’t bring himself to feel too angry with him about it. Harry stands alone, and some distances away, Dumbledore stands alone, not on his side, but not against it either. And together they hold up a third point, the actual point, the one that can’t be broken down, that can’t become unbalanced. The one that needs to last.

Voldemort needs to be defeated.

What this comes down to, is, simply, that Harry is not the point.

“She said that you said that wasn’t the case.”

“Did she explain any further than that?”

He shrugs, leans against the wall. “Not really. Things have been a little. Tense. Lately.”

Dumbledore starts walking down the hallway. Harry falls into step with him.

“There has been some rumours that you, Mr. Weasley and Miss Granger have had a falling out about, how to say this, romantic entanglements?”

He can’t seem to help himself and he huffs out a laugh. Dumbledore looks at him in question.

“Has anyone ever told you, sir, that you’re- you’re a bit of, well, a bit of a gossip?”

Dumbledore does something Harry’s never seen him do before. He rolls his eyes. “It may have come up here and there throughout my lifetime.”

Harry feels like his grin might split his face. Dumbledore pats down the end of his beard. “I am just always interested in people.”

“Sure. Sir.” They walk in silence for a few beats, turn a corner.

“There is a more serious point to this bit of gossip though. Whatever happens between young hearts, I do hope that Ms. Granger and Mr. Weasley will keep an eye on the larger picture.”

He hadn’t even considered that worry. “Oh. No. I mean, all of this drama aside, I trust them.”

“And will you keep them up to date?”

Dumbledore is looking down the hall. His voice is soft, casual.

_If Voldemort should succeed sooner than we’d all like, and should I be dead by then, will there be anybody who knows this whole story, or will I need to restrategise?_

What he would give to go back, to have Hermione put the curtain again over the great and powerful Oz. He doesn’t want to know his tricks.

“It’s not like that. We all still, you know, care. They’ll still want to know anything I learn.”

“Good.”

They are outside the common room entrance, the Fat Lady snoring lightly against her frame.

“It is interesting, is it not? How relationships grow and change over time. How many layers they develop. How they can be angry with you in one breath, but support your biggest endeavors in the next.”

Dumbledore is looking him in the eye. “Sometimes love is not so straight forward. It requires a great deal of trust. That what might look like betrayal is actually a sacrifice.”

_Aren’t you supposed to sacrifice yourself because of love, like my mother did? Rather than sacrifice the ones that you love?_

“Yes. It all does get more complicated, doesn’t it? Every year, it seems. Sometimes it feels like it’s everyday.”

Dumbledore pats him on the shoulder. “Alas, that feeling doesn’t go away the older you get. Best get to sleep, Mr. Potter. We have to rest when we can.”

Harry nods, watches as Dumbledore turns away. He wakes the Fat Lady up, goes upstairs and lays down. But he is still Death and Insomnia Island, and doesn’t sleep except in short bursts.

Hermione and Ron sit down next to him, the next morning at breakfast.

They aren’t tense. Ron passes Hermione a plate of toast. She asks Harry if he’d like the marmalade, floats it down the table at the shake of his head.

“Are you both...okay?”

Ron looks smug. There’s something smug about him. This alarms Harry more than he thinks any of Ron’s expressions should do.

Hermione smiles at him. It doesn’t have any manic energy, no hints of the seething hurt that she’s been daggering him with over the last weeks. It looks gentle. She hands him a plate of fruits.

“We have decided that we want to spend as much time with you as possible, while we can.”

He takes it back. There is something manic tucked away somewhere in the corner of her eye, in her quick blinks. No. Not manic. It’s a lower energy than that. Not quite smug the way Ron’s face is, smirking into his pumpkin juice. But. Assured. Self righteous. There’s something saintly about her, something certain in her posture, the way her elbows are pointing outward.

She’s planning something.

“You’re planning something.”

She stares at him, surprised, almost annoyed, before shaking her head with a smile. She glances at Ron, who’s chewing through a large bite of eggs he just took. He shrugs.

“Don’t worry about it. It’s nothing to be nervous about.”

She tucks her hair behind her ear.

He does not find that overly comforting.

They accompany him about his day. They sit next to him in class. They ask him polite questions. He still feels like his an island, but there are two others in the distance. Two others visible, but not near enough.

He breaks away from them to use the loo.

On the way back, Luna steps in his path. “You aren’t in a love triangle with Ron and Hermione.”

He sighs, falling into step with her as they head to the Great Hall. “What makes you say that?”

“Let’s say that you are in love with Hermione. That would explain Ron’s awkwardness, but not why Hermione is hanging around you while still looking angry. Or more desperate, she looks very desperate, but it reads as angry to the less literate. Then, if you were in love with Ron, that would explain the awkwardness on Ron’s part, but again, not Hermione’s reaction. Unless she confessed her love to you, but then you did to Ron. But that still doesn’t make sense, does it? Why stay closer if that’s the case? And let’s say Ron and Hermione tried to get together, but you threw a fit about loving one or both of them? That might explain Ron’s avoidance and Hermione’s confusing actions, but it doesn't explain your calmness about this all. Which brings me to my final point. You are a very brave boy, Harry, but not really about romantic stuff. So, I was nearly blown away when you volunteered your own juicy bit of gossip all on your own. If it were real, you would have lied poorly and avoided the topic like the plague.”

They were coming down the stairs before the entryway. “How much thought have you given this?”

“Not much. It sort of came to me as I saw you leave the loo.”

“Oh.” He shakes his head. They pause before the Great Hall, when Luna puts a hand on his arm.

“I guess, really, the situation that would make the most sense is that Ron loves you and turned down Hermione and you rejected him. That explains Ron’s avoidance, Hermione's desire to be around you for moral support, but also her anger and desperation at the whole situation, occasionally misplacing her hurt as anger towards you.”

“Luna, that’s not-”

“Oh, I know that’s not it.”

“But you just said-”

“I just think that the day Ron has romantic feelings towards you is the day that I submit an article to the Quibbler denying the existence of Crumple Horned Snorkacks.” She’s staring up at him with wide, wide eyes. “So. Never.”

“Right. Um, so, what? What do you mean?”

She pats his arm, glancing over his shoulder. “I mean good luck with whatever is really going on with you three.”

She turns away just as Ron and Hermione step into his line of sight. Ron slings an arm over his shoulder, and they march past the doors of the Great Hall to the main doors, golden light slanting in from the one cracked open.

“Oi. Where-?”

“We need to talk about this apparent love triangle the three of us are in, mate.”

Harry laughs as Hermione swings the door open wider in front of them. “Yeah. Sorry about that. It’s the only thing I could think of, at the time, to explain all the, uh, weirdness between us.”

They are walking across the lawn, Hermione in front of them, Ron’s arm firmly across his shoulders.

“I wish you’d have thought of something else. Hermione’s really gotten the raw end of the stick.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah. Either people think that we are starting something and Hermione’s all vindictive and in the way, or they think that she’s playing the both of us. People have been saying some nasty things to her.”

He feels an old spark of anger flare, not damped, like the others that have popped up, by the fog of insomnia and death he has been in, for once.

“Oh Merlin, people are such pricks. It didn’t even occur to me that people would somehow turn this on you, Hermione, I’m really sorry. It’s like fourth year all over again. Damn it.”

Why couldn’t Hogwarts just be amused by gossip for once? Why’d they have to get all mean?

They are standing near the Whopping Willow now. The light is starting to fade faster. He glances over his shoulder, tries to shrug Ron off, but his arm is still holding on.

Hermione turns, her wand light in her hands. She has that look again on her face. Saintlike. Assured. “Don’t worry Harry. It won’t matter anymore, here in a minute.”

“Wha-”

But Hermione’s already raised her wand, and a red light is streaking towards him, and then there is nothing.


	4. It is a tale, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing

He wakes up. Before even thinking, his hand reaches for his pocket, but it instead collides with something soft but firm, like a cushion. He sits up right, scrambles back. He’s on a sofa, the room is bright and sunny, there’s something on his chest.

It’s a note. Hermione’s handwriting.

_Harry,_

_Please don’t go too mental. You aren’t in danger. I needed to go out but I will be back soon, hopefully before you wake up._

_Love from,_

_Hermione_

He stands, digs through his pockets. His wand is gone.

He takes a breath, looks around the room. It seems to be a living room, the furniture nice but nondescript, almost like a hotel, but with a few more homely details. There’s a picture on the wall, a blanket casually thrown over the back of one chair.

There is a huge window, looking out onto a vivid blue sea, sparkling, almost painful to look at in the midday sun. A series of wooden steps goes out onto white sand beaches.

Despite the fear burning in his stomach, he can’t help but blink, a little dazzled. The only sea he has been to was with the Dursley’s that stormy night, when he thought his life was changing for the better.

He looks at the photograph on the wall, unblinking and still, muggle. It’s Hermione and her parents standing on what might be the very beach outside. Her parents look pretty much the same, Mrs. Granger with her short pixie cut, curly hair close to her head, Mr. Granger with his rectangular glasses, both of their smiles white, neat, and even. Hermione looks younger than she did her first year, but not by much, maybe ten years old. Her hair is in a long bob, her smile small and trying in vain to cover her bucked teeth.

He has to assume that someone polyjuiced as his friends and kidnapped him for nefarious Voldemort related reasons, just based on common sense. But whoever is doing this is sure going out of their way to make it seem realistic.

He moves to the door, not feeling hopeful, but it seems right to try. To his shock, the door opens, letting in a soothing sea salt scented breeze. He gapes, looks around the edges of it to make sure the door doesn’t open up into a pit or there isn’t a large ax or something suspended above.

There isn’t. Shrugging, he steps out onto the first knobbly and weathered looking stair, feels something very similar to the golden web spell that turned him upside down in his own head in the maze, fourth year. He somehow steps in a direction, though it’s not clear which, and then is stepping out into a room, a comfortable double bed with generic off white bedspread dominating it. The bedroom door is open. He steps back out into the living room he just tried to walk out of.

“Bugger.”

He shrugs off his robes, takes a few steps back, and then runs full tilt through the door. He gets to the first step, tries to keep running, ignoring the complete disorientation, before he’s running through the bedroom again, skidding to a stop in the living room.

“Merlin’s balls, shit. Shit, shit, shit.”

There is a back door, leading to a quiet and very sandy road outside. The same thing happens.

The same thing happens in both bedroom windows, the same thing happens in the small sliver of a window he can barely fit out of in the WC. The tiny kitchen window isn’t big enough for him to get through, but he sticks his hand out through it, curious, and it just sort of disappears. Creeped out, he pulls his hand back in, shaking it.

He looks in the living room, pulls open draws in the small desk in the corner, in the drawers in the small built in cabinet. Nothing. Nothing.

The front door swings open. Harry grabs the small desk lamp, pulls the cord from the wall, and clenches it in his fist like a naff cricket bat.

A familiar voice, though unfamiliarly tentative, calls through the front door.

“Helloooo? Harry? Are you awake?”

Hermione’s head peaks around the door frame. Her eyes widen to see him there, in the corner, lamp in an iron grip close to his chest. She steps the rest of the way in, dropping heavy sounding bags that clunk and click against the wooden floor. She puts up her hands, slowly, and carefully walks into the room.

“I’m really, really sorry I wasn’t here when you woke up. I just needed to get some supplies. I was hoping, I don’t know. I just thought it might be easier to get them right away-”

“Who are you?”

Hermione’s mouth closes with an audible click. She looks confused, then annoyed, and then settles on resigned.

“In First Year, after Snape’s potion challenge to get the stone, I said that you’re the greatest wizard I’ve ever met. I still think that, by the way, though you can be a bit draft sometimes.”

Some of the dread sitting heavily in his stomach seeps away. But another one of a slightly different flavor seems to drip down his throat as he swallows, places the lamp back on the desk. “What the hell is this?”

Hermione closes the door with a soft click, then moves a few steps forward, stands in the middle of the living room. He doesn’t think he’s ever seen her look so uncertain. Not when she mentioned the saving-people-thing, not when he started yelling in Grimmauld Place, summer before 5th year, never.

“Uh. Well. We’re in my parent’s summer home in Valras Plage.”

Harry stares at her blankly.

“It’s sort of near Montpillier.”

He raises his eyebrow.

“Southern France.”

He puts a hand to his face. “Wow. Thanks Hermione. Didn’t know you wanted to go on holiday with me so bad.”

“Harry-”

“Southern France? Southern France? How are we even here? What did you do? Portkey? Did you portkey my unconscious body across international lines? I’m pretty sure they’ll throw you into Azkaban for that. South of bleeding France. Are you joking with me right now? Is this a joke?

She swallows, shakes her head. She opens her mouth to speak but he cuts her off.

“No. Nevermind, it doesn't matter. Where’s my wand? Why is every exit an endless loop? Why are we even here?”

“I put your wand somewhere safe. I spelled them to work that way. And we’re here because you don’t love yourself and Dumbledore doesn’t love you either. And I do. Ron and I do.”

Harry stares at her. She stares back, the uncertainty shifting away from her features.

“So. You-You’ve kidnapped me, to do what? Why?”

“I haven’t kidnapped you-”

“Oh?” He takes a few steps closer, so that they are a few feet away from each other. “So you asked my permission to take me here? You haven’t locked me in here without a wand? I can leave whenever I want?”

Hermione bites her lip, but raises her chin, looks him square in the eye. “Okay. Yes, then. I have kidnapped you.”

There’s something churning in him now, a concoction of unpleasant things; disbelief, anger, incredulity, fear, hurt, exasperation. They turn and weave and duck in and around each other, so that he doesn’t know what to do, can’t seem to decide on anything, nothing is making sense. He feels like he’s taken a step only to have the air become directionless around him.

Hermione crosses her arms over her chest. “I know this isn’t the right thing to do. It’s a violation. And you can h-hate me forever if you’d like. But. Harry. I had to do something.”

She turns away from him, sits down on the sofa, apparently unbothered by Harry still standing there, looking like the very last of his world has crumbled away.

“You actually really didn’t. You had to do the opposite. You should have done nothing.”

Hermione slouches back against the sofa, stares at the floor some distance away. “I’m so tired, Harry. I haven’t been able to sleep. I considered morality a lot over the last few weeks. To what lengths should you go to protect your loved ones? Where is the line between their sense and yours? If you see a loved one drinking themselves into a mess everyday, become all red faced, lose their job, lose their personality, become angry and bitter and always drunk, where do you intervene, and how? Do you intervene when it becomes everyday? When they lose their jobs? How do you intervene? Do you take their booze? Do you pour it down the drain? Do you take their money? Do you lock them up? Do you send them to a rehab center they don’t want to go to? Is there actually anything you can do if they’re committed to drinking themselves to death?”

“I don’t want to die, Hermione. This isn’t a choice I’m making.”

“You could have fooled me. And so. I thought and thought about it, but at the end of the day, I thought, I at least have to try, don’t I? At least try to throw out the drinks, at least try to monitor your spending, at least try to get you to go to rehab. And maybe you’ll hate me, and either way, maybe I’ll lose this friendship. But at least you’ll be alive.”

Harry sits next to her, his head in his hands. He loosens his Hogwarts tie, feels silly, for some reason, to still be in his uniform.

“I’m not suicidal, Hermione. Why are you putting this on me? Did you miss the whole part where the evil wizard who’s out for my blood has a bit of his soul in my body? That he can’t die unless I do?”

“The issue is, Harry, that you are okay with dying.”

He stands up again, runs his hands through his hair, thinks of his father, then thinks of his mother. Some sacrifice they made, just for him to die by the same man later.

“I’m not okay with it, I’ve just accepted it. You need to, too.”

“No.” Her voice is sharp, sure.

He turns to look at her, expects to see her arms crossed over her chest, her legs crossed and locked at the ankle, her expression stone. Instead she looks soft, arms loose, palms up. She’s leaning forward, and her face is so clear, so open.

“I simply refuse. Why don’t you at least try, Harry? Why is it so impossible for you to consider anything else than marching stoically on to your death? Why is that it for you?”

“You don’t understand.”

“Obviously.”

He stares at her, sits on the blue and white mosaic coffee table, so that their knees are touching. “I’m not the point. The point is that Voldemort needs to be defeated. That’s most important. That’s the focus.”

Hermione nods, sits forward. “Then you don’t get the point. You are the point. You are most important. You need to live.”

Harry shakes his head, puts a hand on the back of his neck.

“Honestly, what did you expect? What would you do if our situations were reversed? Would you cheer from the side? Help me kill bits of his soul, preparing to shed a tear for the final one? Start planning a eulogy the closer we get?”

“Hermione-” His voice is low, a whisper.

“Maybe get worried whenever I go off alone, wonder if it’s time?”

“Stop-”

“Would you give me a proud nod, a hug, before I left to go die? Would you let yourself cry or would you try to be brave for me?”

“Please.”

She leans forward, puts a hand on top of his on the back of his neck, so that he has to look her in the eye. “Well? Would you?

He lets out a breath, stands, turns on his heel, and walks to the bedroom, Hermione’s voice calls out behind him. “What? You’re running away? We have to face this.”

The bedroom door closes with a click. He sits on the white duvet and looks out the window. The sun is setting now. He can hear Hermione sniffing, choking back crying sounds as she shuffles around the kitchen, putting away whatever it is she bought.

He watches as the sky becomes orange, then pink, then a faded violet, the water all the while sparkling and shimmering. Even though he spent many hours unconscious, somehow being stupefied isn’t the same as sleep, and he finds himself tired. He takes off his tie, his vest, his shoes and socks, and lays down. He makes a decision and sleeps.

When he wakes up, he feels good. Really good. Resolved and clear headed. But also this has to be the most sleep he’s gotten in weeks. He almost forgot what it was like to not walk around in a fog.

The sun is still at an angle, meaning it must be early, but Hermione is up already, her hair in a high and floppy looking bun. She’s frowning at the stove top, glances up at him, her eyes wide and rimmed in a little red. She looks tired, exhausted even. He moves over to her, nudges her out of the way, pokes around a bit. It’s a gas cooker. She hands him a full kettle, which he puts on the flame, and they sit at the small wooden kitchen table.

“First, I’d like to appologise.”

She stares at him in shock. “To me?”

He nods. “I really didn't think of what I expected of you. How unfair that is. You’re right, if the situation was reversed, I would definitely not be able to watch you walk off to your death. I wouldn’t be able to help you plan for it, any of that.”

She nods, moves to stand when the kettle starts to whistle, but he puts a hand on her shoulder to stop her moving.

“I thought about it last night and came to a bit of a decision. I do think I’m being a bit pig headed. Why not at least investigate? Why not at least see what can be done, right?”

He moves back towards the table, placing down two mugs with tea steeping in them.

She’s frowning at him.

“Why do you look like that? I’m saying I want to try-”

“You’re doing it again.”

“Doing what?”

“That fake smile.”

He stills, then touches his face. “Sorry, habit.”

But her frown doesn’t relent at all. “We can learn more about Horcruxes, think about how to get you out of this. We will, of course, make every effort in that, the three of us.”

“Where is Ron, anyway?”

“He decided to stay at Hogwarts. To be a spy of sorts, get us supplies and info when we need, too. He’ll join us eventually.”

“A spy? At Hogwarts? Who is he spying on?”

“Dumbledore.”

He involuntarily lets out a high pitched, mad sounding giggle and takes a sip of his tea. It burns his lip a little.

“Ron’s spying on Dumbledore. That’s normal. This is so normal. You’ve kidnapped me, we’re in the South of France, and Ron’s spying on Dumbledore. Sure. Why not.”

But still she’s frowning, dark bags under her eyes, her skin sallow and sickly looking. She sips her tea. “The main issue remains, still, that you are okay with dying. That’s what really needs to change, I think. Obviously we need to get the Horcrux out. But I think in order to do so, we must find the motivation in you to actually do it.”

_Ah, that does put a bit of a wrinkle in my plan, doesn’t it? Hermione’s always so thorough._

“Why do you insist on saying that I want to die? How many times have I don’t you that I don’t?”

She takes a deep gulp from her mug, closes her eyes for a second, tilts her head back. When she opens her eyes again, she’s still looking upward, her gaze firmly on the ceiling. “Because, and I don’t think you notice, but every time you talk about Voldemort killing you, you smile a little. It’s very disturbing.”

He stills, something crashing through him, something scolding and vicious. It hurts. “What? No-No I don’t. How could you even say-”

She looks down at him. “I’m going to try to sleep more, I think. I feel pretty terrible.”

He still feels like something is walking through his skin, lighting little matches it goes, but she does look so bleak.

“When’s the last time you slept?”

She shrugs.

He stands, takes the mug from her grip, pulls her to her feet. He walks with her the few steps to the other bedroom, guides her to the bed, sits on the edge as she shifts under the sheets. “I know you care, but Hermione, it’s not all that. You don’t need to make yourself ill.”

“I had a lot of planning to do.” She rests her check against her hand, on her pillow. She suddenly looks very young. “Will you stay until I fall asleep?”

He nods, swings his legs up, leans against the wooden headboard with waves and clam designs printed here and there across it.

Within seconds her breaths are deep and even, but he doesn’t move away.

_It’s not that I’m happy to think of it. I’m sick with anticipation. I feel like I'm falling from a plane, like I've jumped off a cliff when I've just meant to peak over the edge. And when I think of it, I can’t help but feel that at least then it will be over, and I won’t have to watch the ground come closer, and I won’t have to pretend that there’s someone coming with a parachute to save me. I won’t have to look out for bodies of water to aim towards, or imagine that there will be a big, big air bag ready for my landing, like for those people jumping away from fires. I won’t have to hope that I’m one of those miracles sort of people that can somehow survive due to tall trees and thick snow. Come out of it with all my bones broken, but alive._

_No. Smacking into the earth will hurt, and he doesn’t want to feel it, but at least then it will be over._

He reaches out, tucks a hair behind her ear. She shifts, hums a little, moves down more into her pillow.

_Poor Ron and Hermione. If I had known, I would never have involved them in my life at all. But here we are. They have their plan, and I’ll do my best to comply. We will look for solutions. And I will talk positively of the future, and it will all be very hopeful._

_They’ll have their plan. And I’ll have mine._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And so, so far the response to this has been so positive. There has been much speculation of the direction of this, and I find myself hesitating. Before the writing is out there, it can be anything, and no one is wrong and no one is disappointed. But of course, there is no point outside of the doing. So I will continue to write for myself and enjoy, and simply hope you all do too. Of course though, I appreciate any feed back, including what is and is not working.


	5. One may smile, and smile, and be a villain

_When you breathe in, a deep, deep breath, one of the ones that flows through your chi and releases the tension of the modern world, the molecules of germs and dust and air swoop up, up into your brain. They become part of its matter and your brain becomes a further part of the universe, just as your soul. Your beautiful soul is already part of the universe, in it’s endless swirls and spirals, a reflection of all its wondrous glory. From there, you can feel the grandeur of it’s pretty little tentacles, seeping out, out through you, to become magic._

“Christ.” Hermione wrinkles her nose, slapping the book closed with too much vigor and flinging it into a pile of rejects at the end of the sofa.

Harry is flipping idly through a book of his own, sprawled out on the floor on the other side of the coffee table. “Not a winner?”

“If I read about the word chi written by some half-wit who doesn’t even know what it is one more time, I’m going to have to start becoming something I’ve never considered before. Something I would have never believed myself capable of.”

“What? A murderer? You’ll go murder the authors?”

“What? No. A book burner.”

“Ah. Much worse.”

“Obviously.”

“What about you, any luck?”

He hums, considers the front of the book in his hands. “I think this guy thinks souls aren’t real.”

“Oh. Well, that seems to be demonstratively untrue.”

He sighs, closes the book and rests his chin against it. “You know, when I fantasised about trying to defeat Voldemort when I was younger, I pictured, like, learning how to make a massive magic flame sword, and Voldemort would scream when he saw it, and I would yell and stick him through with it. Then there would be a crowd there, and they’d all go aaahhh, whooo, we rename you from the rather lame title of The-Boy-Who-Lived to Massive-Fiery-Sword-Man, kick-ass mate, yay! But no, instead I’m reading book after book about souls while in a summer home in the South of France.”

Hermione’s shoulders are shaking, completely silent, she’s laughing so hard. She takes a gasp of air. “M-Massive-Fiery-Sword-Man?”

“Yeah, then I’d get that tattooed across my back, with just a ton of flames all around it. Very manly.”

She lets out a cackle, falling back against the arm of the sofa, pulling up one of the pillows there to cover her face. She thinks she might be crying from laughing so much. Harry is grinning at her.

“You don’t have to laugh so hard at the idea of me being very manly.”

“Oh tosh, you’re plenty manly. That just sounds ridiculous.”

“Such are twelve year old boy’s daydreams.”

Hermione sits up straight, reaches for her tea, which has gone room temperature since the last time she picked it up. She taps against it with her finger twice, staring at Harry as he flips through the book, not even looking like he’s reading.

“You know what I was daydreaming about here and there, growing up?”

He turns to look at her, his expression just about dripping with smartarsedness, she can practically see Ron’s influence superimposed over his face. But she can see, almost like watching evolution right before her eyes, him pushing the impulse of whatever thing his brain came up with aside. With a sigh, she can see him giving it actual thought.

See, that was the difference between him and Ron there. Ron would have opened his mouth and had his fun, whatever backpedaling may come afterward.

“Hmm. I’m mean, outside of Lockhart dipping you backward and kissing you passionately on a beach back in second year, I can’t say I could guess.”

She shifts. That had actually been a daydream she had had. She sniffs, gives him a pretend glare.

She taps her finger against her mug again. “I daydreamed about saving you. About swooping in for the rescue, for once.”

His eyebrows raise. He sits up, so that he’s sitting cross-legged, facing her. “You saved me all the time.”

“No, I didn’t-”

He scoffs. “I, I just can’t believe you’d even try to argue about that. Who got me past the potions test in first year?”

“Yes, but-”

“And you were actually unconscious for a good chunk of second year and still managed to help us figure that out, which is just so like you.”

“I’m not saying I’m not helpful-”

“Helpful? Sirius and the both of us would have been soulless at the end of third year, if you hadn’t had that time turner. And in fourth year, I would have been dragon food if you hadn’t taught me the summoning spell more. And all those spells before the third task. Actually, the more I’m thinking about this, it’s a little embarrassing on my part-”

She sighs, tosses a pillow at him. “Would you listen for a second?”

Harry nods, holding the pillow close to him.

“It’s always on you, in the end, though. I helped with the potions, but you went and got the stone away from Voldemort. I helped figure out it was a basilisk, but you’re the one that ran it’s mouth through with a sword. I had the time turner, but you’re the one that held back the dementors. You did the tasks, you were there when he came back, you ended up battling longer than any of us at the Ministry, you had to face him again. I just. I don’t know. If my daydreams went the action sort of way, my brain couldn’t come up with anything more insane than your life. So I just pictured being more than helpful.”

“You wanted to be Massive-Fiery-Sword-Man?”

She grins, just a little. “Maybe not quite exactly that, but you get the general idea.”

He considers her, shakes his head. “That’s just so mad to me, because you’re my go to person. I always think of you first when I’m being a panicky moron. And Ron, of course, so we can sit in the panic together about whatever it is while you figure it out. It just, it never even occurred to me that you’d want to be, I don’t know, even more action-y about things.”

She shakes her head, grinning more. “It was just daydreams. I don’t picture myself stabbing mythological creatures anytime soon.”

“Never say never. It’s a topsy turvy world.” He’s staring out the dark window, his face pensive, but just for a beat, just long enough for Hermione to wonder at what he’s thinking.

His expression shifts, all at once, to something lighter.

He really has gotten better at lying over the years.

“We should go out. I think I’ll go mental if we stay inside this whole time.”

She bites her lip.

“Oh don’t be like that. Plus, I’ve no wand, or money, or passport. What am I going to do? Wonder around France, begging for change, take that chunnel thing back over?” He stands up, moves over to the sofa next to her. “Besides, this is actually very nice. I didn’t picture the two of us being dropouts, but it does feel a little silly to be hanging around, writing enormous essays when there are more important things to be doing.”

“That’s it then? You’re okay with my making you forcibly leave the country-”

“Also known as kidnapping-”

“Because you don’t have to do homework?”

He stills, almost works up a glare, clearly wanting to be offended at the idea, but then shrugs. “Yeah. Seems so.”

She laughs, shaking her head.

It’s late afternoon, the light a golden color. There’s a slight breeze, but mostly it’s calm, the water gentle as it moves back and forth over the sand.

She starts placing spells, nervous. She had practised. Spent a lot of time researching useful concealment charms. Anti-muggle wards, notice-me nots, plotless points, silence domes. She hesitated, then put out an anti-departure sphere, just in case. Just in case, on principle, maybe, he felt like he should try to leave, grab her wand from her, stun her, and head out. She can easily picture him even just running off, begging for money, somehow getting back home, if he’s motivated enough.

She really has kidnapped him.

_How’d it get like this?_

It feels like the whole world is against her, and her hands shake, just for a second.

She goes back inside, takes his hand, pulls him through the wards, until they are both sitting in the sand.

He’s smiling a little, looking around. He takes off his shoes and socks and rolls up his trouser legs and stands in the gentle lapping of the water, just to his ankles.

He certainly doesn’t look like he’s trying to run away, like he’s even considering it.

She’s noticed that he’s been sleeping better, the dark bags under his eyes brightening, his shoulders less hunched.

She’s so afraid that he’s trying to say goodbye. Trying to make it nice.

“You know, I’ve never really been to the sea. I mean, that’s not true. I went once with the Dursleys. They were running away from the owls trying to give me my Hogwarts letter.”

“What?”

“Yeah, it was a bit barmy, thinking on it. There were hundreds of owls at some point. They were furious, kept going from place to place. My uncle even bought a gun. He lost it, just completely. Eventually Hagrid came, I think I’ve told you that part before?”

“Yeah. I didn’t know about all the owls though. McGonagall came to our door and gave us the letter and a little demonstration to prove she wasn’t mad. That we weren’t mad for noticing all the accidental magic I had done.”

“That seems a touch simpler than bombarding my neighborhood with owls.”

“I think the rules are different for muggleborns. They are supposed to give us a chance not to accept. But for you, your relatives already knew, so there was no reason for someone to come. They were just supposed to reply.”

He’s silent, staring out at the sea, his hands in his pockets. “Do you think Dumbledore knows? How they treated me? All the letters mentioned the cupboard.”

She sits very still. He never talks about the Dursleys, side steps them with a bit of sarcasm on the rare occasion that they do come up.

He turns to look at her, an expression on his face she’s never seen before, doesn’t know where to place it, outside of the fact that it makes her chest hurt to see it.

“Yes. I think he must.”

He nods, looks back out to the water. “Obviously that trip to the sea doesn’t count though, it was night and raining and I couldn’t see a thing. Hagrid and I crossed the water in the boat the next day and it was so nice, but only five minutes long or so before we left. I’ve always wanted to go back. This is really nice.” He reaches down, puts his hands in the water, splashes it around a bit, looking like a five year old.

_He’s planning something. And he has gotten so much better at lying. Or more, concealing his real feelings, avoiding and walking around them and pretending. But whatever. I know him._

_He’s planning something. And it’s not terribly difficult to figure out. He thinks he can placate me. Go through the motions and efforts, so that Ron and I will process the reality of his situation. Then, once we know there is no out, we’ll understand, and he can go back to digging his own martyr’s grave._

_And what if he’s right? What if there is no way out-_

“Hermione? You okay?”

He’s looking at her with furrowed brows, he’s stepped out of the water, his hands dripping, his feet covered in a layer of sand.

“What if the answer isn’t in a book?”

He stares at her, solemn.

“You already don’t think it is in one.”

He shakes his head.

“Then why have you been reading them?”

He frowns. “It’s not like, I, It’s not like it’s harmful to at least check.”

“I check over all the books that you look through.”

He looks affronted. “I know you’re smarter than I am. But I can still read.”

“But you’re not really reading them. At least not with any real interest.”

He considers her, the practised ease of his features shifting into something stonier. “You’re really stuck on this thought that I want to die. I’m telling you, I’m willing to look-”

“You’re just placating me.”

He shrugs, not denying it.

“Fine then, say the answer isn’t in a book. We’re dealing with some very confusing magic. Then will you help me figure out something new? Will you placate me more?”

He stares. “I should be at Hogwarts, learning as much from Dumbledore as I can. It’s irresponsible for me to even be here, isn’t it? But you and Ron are my friends, and I was an ass to think that you both would be okay with all of this. I’m just trying to give you some time-”

She shakes her head. “Do you know why I brought you here?”

“Because you think I’m suicidal.”

“Because of your saving-people-thing.”

He looks back towards the ocean, blinking against the fading light. Another breeze picks up, cool and chill, a hint of moisture in the air, though the clouds above remain white.

“Let’s head back inside.”

She stands and brushes the sand off of her jeans, takes his hand, and in silence they walk back into the house.

Harry drops her hand, leaves and takes a shower.

She sits in the living room, pillow in her lap, fingers gentle over the covers of the books at her feet.

They can’t count on anything they used to, anymore.

She looks at the photo of her parents; their nice, even smiles.

Something in how she's feeling makes her remember the summer after third year, and she was fairly exhausted. Her mum was sitting across from her, looking at something in a patient’s notes. Her dad was out in the garden continuing his long campaign to wage war against his arch nemesis, weeds.

Her mum glances up from her notes to Hermione’s face, then back down. “I’m glad you’ve decided to drop a couple of classes and not use the time turner next year, Hermione.”

“You are?” Her parents always expected her to do the best she possibly can. They were never pushy, never mean about it. It was always just there, in their eyes, whenever she brought grades home, or started a new hobby.

“Yes. I was a little leary of it to begin with, it seems like it would be just, I don’t know, risky.”

“Merlin. There were a few times when I-”

“Merlin? Why’d you just say Merlin?”

Her mum’s smiling at her like she’s just made a funny mistake.

“Oh. It’s an expression in, in the wizarding world.”

“Merlin? Why? Was he real?”

“Yes. He founded a lot of current principles of magic. Very smart man.”

“You’re pulling my leg.”

“No. No. He was one of the earliest students at Hogwarts.”

“Oh.” Her mum’s smile fades oddly. She stares down at her notes again, more folded in.

“Mum?”

She glances up. “There’s so much I don’t know about all that stuff, isn’t there?”

Her expression remains tight, and they are both silent as she finishes making annotations on her patient's notes.

Harry comes back out, his hair a little damp, and sits next to her, elbows on his knees.

“I know you’d gladly do whatever needs to be done to save the wizarding world from Voldemort. And maybe that’s where this will end up. But the whole thing weirds me out so much. Dumbledore knows. He knows and he’s just...going to let it happen.”

He stares down at his hands, his mouth tight, lips thin in tension. “He’s a pretty smart man, though. Maybe he’s already looked into it, thought of it, worked through it all, and this is the best answer. We get rid of the Horcruxes, then I die.”

“Yes, it’s a rather neat little parcel, isn’t it? But that’s the whole thing, the whole point. Dumbledore doesn’t love you. He’s going to think about what seems best for the Wizarding World, over you. He’s not going to experiment, do deep research dives in your favor with whatever limited amount of time he has left. He’s focusing on whatever needs to be done to defeat Voldemort. But that’s not good enough for me and Ron. And if, whatever is going on with you wasn’t going on with you, it wouldn’t be good enough for you either. We’ll go to the ends of the earth for you, you dimwit. We have to try. It’s beyond painful that you don’t want to do that for yourself.”

A light pattering of rain has started to fall outside. Harry’s hands are clenching and unclenching around each other. The silence drags on and she can see him try and fail to put on that easy expression she’s learning to loathe. She can see him thinking, slight shakes of his head. He takes a breath to say something, but it fails him. There’s something in his eye, something in the softness of his frown that makes her heartbeat just a little bit faster with hope.

There’s a knock at the door, four firm taps, that make Harry and her jump. Her wand is in hand before she thinks about it.

No one should be able to walk up to this place. No one except-

“Oi, it’s me, Ron.”

She stands up and Harry follows after her, closely, too close. She can’t imagine what he would do if this isn’t Ron, but standing close to her appears to be part of it. She taps her wand against the door and it makes a small peephole. She peers out and it certainly looks like Ron, standing in the rain, his hair starting to stick to his face.

He face looks-

Bad. Somber isn’t a good look on his usually goofy visage.

“What did you say to me before the third task when we were sitting in the stands?”

“Uh, I don’t know. I think I talked about how loud and off beat that tuba player was.”

She rolls her eyes and opens the door. “Not really the answer I was looking for, but in a way, one that makes it much more certain that it’s you.”

He’s standing in the entryway, closing the door behind him. He can only glance at them for a brief second before his eyes drift back to the floor. She can feel her heart starting to race. He looks kind of ill. She opens her mouth to ask if he wants some tea, to take his cloak off.

But Ron takes a deep breath instead. “Dumbledore is dead. Snape killed him.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading!


	6. My dear master, My captain and my emperor, let me say, Before I strike this bloody stroke, farewell

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Getting ~~~ experimental ~~~

When Hermione was one years old, her grandmother passed away. To her, she exists only in a series of photographs, in a long golden necklace she inherited from her, and in the way that her mother’s mouth sometimes wavers and her eyes turn red when she looks at a photo of her holding Hermione when she was a few weeks old.

Her father doesn’t speak to his parents, but he does occasionally talk to his brother, who moved to New Zealand well before Hermione was born. She can remember, when she was around eight years old, the few months when her dad moved about the house more quietly, the low conversations her parents would have in the other room. She gathered from what she heard that her uncle’s three year old son had died, accidentally drowning in a neighbor's pool. And though they were cousins, she didn’t feel anything but a vague sense of sadness at the terrible loss, an unease that such a thing can even happen. She hadn’t known her cousin at all.

Instead she watched the grief play across her dad’s face at odd moments, when they were at the store and saw a toy truck, or when they were at a pond and there was a childish shriek as a mother scooped up a toddler and placed her back into her buggy. Her cousin existed to her in the way that her dad would pull her close for longer than he used to, and kiss the top of her head.

When Cedric died, she felt it like an electrical shock, the whole school had. Though she had never spoken to him directly, she had seen him around, had admired his good looks in passing, had scrutinised him during the time most of the school was wearing the Potter Stinks buttons. He seemed nice, Harry liked him well enough, though he was a little jealous of him. Despite the distance, the current of shock passed through her more directly, and it felt more real. Someone was there and then they weren’t. One day he's laughing down the hallway with his friends, one day he’s looking stressed while writing something in the library, and the next he’s gone.

But she had been so focused on Harry. On the lost look in his eye. The way he walked down the halls looking at nothing, seeing nothing. He would clench his hand against his arm unconsciously, he would clench his teeth and wince at random moments, and she assumed his scar was hurting.

It was all so unfair, all so real, she didn’t know where to place it, how to understand.

But even that wasn’t anything to how it felt losing Sirius.

She spent the brief time she spent with her parents that summer reading about grief. How to get through grief yourself, how to help people get through grief. She talked to her parents about it, her mother shook her head and talked about poor Harry’s awful luck, her father almost seemed angry for him. She asked what she should do.

Listen. Be patient. Don’t walk on eggshells, but be considerate of their mood. Don’t try to cheer them up. Let them be unhappy. Let them be happy too. Overall, learn to accept that there is a limit to what you can do, just let them know that you’re there for them.

That’s what everything seemed to boil down to. She wanted to have a firmer guideline, she wanted a manual. But she knew that things like this aren’t things you can put down to a formula. She couldn’t rewrite others' experiences with her own words to learn them. She just had to do it.

But Harry wasn’t difficult. He was easy. He smiled often. And she had made the mistake of being relieved.

This. This was different though. This wasn’t like anything else.

This is the end of the world as they know it.

The silence in the room is painful. Ron steps forward, taking off his cloak. He glances around, finds the kettle, and still dripping from his hair, goes over to it.

Hermione turns to watch, her eyes following the droplets, her mind preoccupied with them, thinking about the trail they make over thinking of anything else.

They sit at the table, mugs steaming in front of them.

“I don’t know exactly what happened. After you two first left, Dumbledore found me, asked me what our plan was. I told him that we’re going to figure out how to get that Horcrux out of you without you dying first, before anything else. He looked troubled. I thought he was going to lecture me. But instead he just turned and left. And he’s been gone pretty much the whole time since. No one knows where. I almost packed up to leave, too, because there’s really no point in spying on Dumbledore if he’s not around, right? But he came back after dinner one night and found me. We went to his office and he told me that he thought he had found one of them, that he was going to try and get it and that he's telling me before he goes just in case he doesn’t come back, so that we’ll know.

“He went to a seaside cave, I guess, where Voldemort went on holiday as a child once. I don’t know. I wandered around the castle. I didn’t know what else to do. While he was gone, Malfoy got a group of Death Eaters in through the room of requirements, somehow. I’m not sure what happened, McGonagall told me that later, but I was in the Great Hall at that point. I saw the dark mark outside of Dumbledore’s office, and I knew. I saw a lump on the grass, at a distance, and I-” Ron chokes. He looks pale and lost. Sick. He pulls out a large, clunky locket, and a piece of a paper from his pocket. “This w-was in his hand. I think he fell after he was killed.”

Harry pulls them closer to himself. He looks completely blank. He glances down the note, blinks and puts it aside. She can see the loopy neatness of Dumbledore’s handwriting. He then takes the locket and opens it and pulls out another piece of paper. He leaves them on the table in front of him, his shoulders hunched, his expression still so empty.

She picks up one, the handwriting in it unfamiliar.

_To the Dark Lord_

_I know I will be dead long before you read this but I want you to know that it was I who discovered your secret. I have stolen the real Horcrux and intend to destroy it as soon as I can. I face death in the hope that when you meet your match you will be mortal once more._

_R.A.B._

She puts it aside, picks up the note from Dumbledore.

_Dear Harry,_

_I have disappointed myself and I assume you, as well, in my half-hearted attempts to dissuade you from the truth. My motivations to conceal it from you were twofold. I wanted you to know at the right time. I also didn’t want you to spend the last of your young life suffering with the knowledge that you must._

_We enter now, all of us, into unknown waters. What you and your friends do with this knowledge is up to you. Plans I have carefully constructed have fallen into ashes at the last second._

_In these strange last minutes, I must be honest with you about another deep failing. I am relieved that I go before you._

_I have all the faith a person can have for you, Harry. I know that you will do what is right._

_To the next great adventure._

_Albus_

She stares at the table. Ron takes the notes too and presumably reads them. She can’t look at either of their faces.

All is a terrible white static, a noise that swallows her thoughts, all of her feelings, and leaves only it behind.

Ron chokes again, his shaking hands putting the notes on the table. He sobs, a sound ripped from him. “What a horrible bastard. I can’t - What a horrible-” He groans, puts his fits up to his red face.

“How do you know Snape killed him?” Harry’s voice is smooth, detached. His face is still empty.

Ron takes a couple of gulps of tea. His voice still breaks. “He yelled it out. I was coming back in and he and a group of those people, Malfoy included, were leaving. McGonagall was chasing after them, but Snape shoots her down. And he starts laughing and he just tells her. I think there were others fighting elsewhere, but it's just me outside, and Snape, and then McGonagall and all those death eaters. The rest joined them, made a group and they just… left.”

Harry nods and places the notes on top of each other. He folds them neatly and places them in his pocket. He stands and moves to the living room and they follow.

He takes the fairly stiff sort of chair and sits stiffly in it. Ron and Hermione take the sofa. She realizes belatedly that she has brought the mug with her and brings it to her lips over and over again. Some time passes, then there is nothing left to drink.

Ron’s head starts to droop, then drop, he jerks and shifts, sits up and blinks at them as though he is seeing them after a period of complete darkness and his eyes haven’t adjusted.

“Would it - Would it be weird if we just laid down together, in the other room?” Harry's voice is quiet.

Ron looks so tired that he could sleep in the middle of the Forbidden Forest. Hermione can’t imagine sleeping by herself. Or sleeping at all.

She stands, leads the way. Ron flops down on the bed and is asleep immediately, pale in the dim light of the bedside lamp. Hermione takes a throw blanket and tosses it over him, then takes off her shoes and slips under the covers, scoots towards the middle of the bed, trying to make room for Harry.

But he just sits on the edge and leans back against the headboard.

“If you help me scoot Ron over, I think there’s enough room-”

He shakes his head, pulls one leg up onto the bed. “This is fine.”

She frowns at him but he just smiles back. Or something like a smile, if smiles could die and come back as wistful ghosts. He reaches out, touches her hair. Despite the oddness of him doing so, it’s still nice, gentle, makes her feel younger and older all at once.

“I’ve always wanted to touch your hair more.”

Everything feels a little surreal. Ron’s breathing is loud and even behind her. Harry’s face is cast half in shadow, half in warring lights, one warm from the lamp, one a cool blue from the moon. He looks calm and sad. But his hand in her hair is soothing, it’s nice to feel him there. She worries for him so.

“You have? Why?” Her voice comes out soft, softer than she means for it to. The mattress is warm underneath her, her eyes feel like ships sinking, lower and lower, despite her best efforts, water slowly filling them, so that they can’t float open.

“Because it’s so soft and fluffy looking. You know how Ron and Ginny and all the Weasleys are so affectionate? Ron’s touched my hair who knows how many times, giving me a nuggie, messing it up, whatever. But I couldn’t do that to you. You’re a girl. Besides that, you’re so proper it just seems wrong. Even Ron wouldn’t do that. But Ginny braids it sometimes, sometimes she takes out tangles and flattens out uneven poofs or whatever they're called. But I can’t do that. I don’t like touching people, I don’t know how to do that, I never have. Once, when I was little, one of my first memories, my stomach hurt and I went to hug my Aunt Petunia, but she shoved me away, went and got me a soda water, said it would help. I learned that I shouldn’t reach out. Something about the shoving away hurt worse than the stomachache. But I know that you wouldn’t shove me away. I know. But I always- I don’t know. I couldn’t find a way. But your hair really is just as soft and fluffy as it looks. I’m glad I, I’m glad I was able to- I don’t even know why I’m saying all this, you aren’t even awake.”

But she is. She can hear every word. It feels like she knows every word already, that in her three-quarters sleep the distance between him thinking something, him speaking to it to her and her hearing it, thinking about it and understanding it have been reduced down to one process, his thoughts to hers. She wants to wake up more, to tell him, but the gentle movement of his long fingers carding through her hair, so soft as to not catch on anything, shifts her into the totality of unconsciousness.

She’s in her parent’s dental office. She knows she’s dreaming, but she’s there, in the sterile smell, among the gray stiff chairs. Their receptionist is there, speaking quietly into the phone. She makes eye contact with her and smiles, puts her finger up. Just one minute, she mouths.

Hermione sits. It’s the day before she gets her Hogwarts letter, she’s mentally preparing for secondary school, already bored.

What she would give to feel bored again.

“Sorry about that dearie. Your mum said that you should wait in the break room until she’s wrapped up. It shouldn’t be too terribly long. Do you have anything to read? Never mind, of course you do.”

She follows the receptionist’s white shoes into the break room, gives her an awkward smile as she says that she has to go back to the front.

  
She puts her rucksack on the chair next to her, takes a water from the fridge, leans against the counter, blinks into the fluorescent light and hopes that she never, ever works in a place like this.

The break room haunts her dreams. The small windowless room, the lunch sacks stuffed into the fridge, the chipped mugs in the cabinet, the squeaky chairs, the small talk - Oh, how was your weekend, Barbara? - It was lovely, went to the park with my grandson. - Oh charming, we stayed inside mostly, chilly weather we’ve been having-. It made her want to pull her own hair out, or hide in a closet, in one of the cabinets.

As she thinks it, one of the cabinets begins to glow, the dark blue of the particle board lined in shining white. With a shaking hand she opens it, and for a second she remembers terror and sadness, and as the white light grows, she considers how nice it would be, to take out her lunch and make small talk with her co-worker in a windowless break room.

The white light envelopes her and she steps forward, so that she’s standing in her parent’s garden. They are drinking Pimms, laughing at something. She remembers this. She was thirteen. She had missed months of her life, had heard about what had happened, had felt how her friends had missed her, but still, there was nothing. A long black night of endless nothing. She would wake suddenly sometimes, the eyes of the basilisk bright in the mirror before darkness, and feel the happiness of blinking, of seeing. She would run her hands along her blanket, feel the threads and the lumps and cry. She didn’t want to sleep anymore, and spent the summer tired and awake.

She had stood at the door to the garden and considered her parents, replaying the words in her mind; _I want to go to regular school and get a tutor for my magic. I don’t want to go back to Hogwarts. I don’t want to go back. I don’t want to go back. I don’t want to. I don’t._

But an owl came, one from Ron, trying to organise when they can meet at Diagon Alley. He told briefly the story of how his father told him how Harry had run away, and she knew she couldn’t leave them. Not Ron, not Harry, not Diagon Alley or Hogwarts or anything.

But she thinks, sometimes, of her standing in the doorway, of watching them laugh over their drinks.

This time, she walks forward, this time they look at her, their smiles dropping, their faces concerned. She opens her mouth and screams, screams so loud that earth shakes, the the windows shatter, the fences fall and the ground opens, swallows her whole. She tumbles, scrapes and falls and comes out the other side in Dumbledore's office.

She’s in Dumbeldore’s office, the night she figured out Harry’s problem. The lighting is the same, dark corners, scattered candle light, something from a dark fairy tale. Dumbledore's face is grave and, not pale, but white, very white, in front of her. She sees her reflection in the dark glass of the window and sees herself looking back, worried, tired, tear tracks staining her face.

“I didn’t wish for Mr. Potter to die.”

She snaps her head around to look at him. “Maybe you didn’t like it, but you were willing.”

His robes are white, his hair white, his skin white. “I had a plan. A delicate one, one where much had to go right and little had to go wrong for it to work. It was possible, likely, even, that it would not work. But it was a plan to make it all work out. To have Voldemort die and Harry to live. But it’s all gone wrong right away. I must say, Ms. Granger, that it was unlike you to listen to your instincts so well.”

Hermione could feel her spin stiffen. He’s right. It’s not like her to feel so certain about something just because she thought it. It’s not like her to understand something intuitively and have that be enough. But the truth rang like a bell; certain, clear, the vibrations of it filling every corner of her. It couldn’t have been ignored, couldn’t have been written off, even when she wanted it to be.

“May I suggest, then, that you remember that feeling.” He’s in front of her now. His blue eyes are shining, the edges coming in, white over taking them, until there are only his pupils left. “If your instincts got us all here, then maybe they can get you all out.”

“Hermione!”

She gasps, sits up straight. They’re in the bedroom, light streaming in. Ron’s holding his wand out. “He’s gone, Hermione. I think the git put us under a sleeping spell, I think he took your wand.”

She didn’t need to feel around. She knew. She was so shocked, she had left it on the kitchen table last night. “What time is it?”

Ron gapes at her, looks impatient, but still flicks his wand. The glow of the time spell shows that it’s nearly noon.

They stare at each other across the room.

“Bugger.”


	7. And whether we shall meet again I know not. Therefore our everlasting farewell take

Rufus Scrimgeour looks like a corpse. He’s lost weight since Harry’s seen him last, his cheeks hollow, his eyes weary. His skin looks like paper, and Harry feels sorry for him.

The Minister must sense something of the pity Harry feels for him, because his scowl deepens.

“Mr. Potter. Do you care to tell me how you illegally went into France? Why people from my office had to go to the Ministry of Magical Affairs of France in order to get you back into this country?”

“It was an apparition accident. I hadn’t intended to apparate, obviously. And certainly not so far. But. Here we are.”

“You simply can not apparate into another country.”

“There is evidence to the contrary. Namely, that I’ve done so.”

Scrimgeour looks to be in pain. His jaw seems tense enough to snap.

“Are you aware, Mr. Potter, that Professor Dumbledore has left you and two of your friends items in his will?”

He feels sand again, between his organs, but it has been there too long, and their grinding is causing him a serious amount of pain, now. “His body’s not even in his grave and you all have looked into his will. That’s-”

“Where have you been?”

“France, I believe you are aware-”

“Do not play games with me, you child.” Scrimgeour hisses at him, spittle flinging out onto his desk. His face almost gains color just from the sheer force of him suppressing his scream. “You don’t understand anything that’s going on. You’ve been blindly following Dumbledore, but now he’s dead. And you’ve been missing. There are those in the Ministry who sense conspiracy from you, who think that these two things are not unrelated. I have no way to stop this kind of talk from growing in momentum unless I know what you were actually doing. Somehow the story that you and Miss Granger just suddenly decided to drop out of school with only a letter written in Miss Granger’s handwriting as a formal leaving, and then what, decided to illegally apparate along the English coastline until you accidentally ended up in France, isn’t a compelling story. It is a lie. I don’t have time for lies told to me by self important children.”

“Am I being charged with something?”

“What?”

“The French Ministry already fined me for illegal entry, though they waved the court date seeing that I went home effective immediately. You all came and helped sort that out. Cheers, thank you, really. But is there any particular reason that I’m here?”

Scrimgeour stands quickly and with speed that Harry isn’t anticipating, steps around his desk and grabs him by the shoulders. His fingers dig deeply into the meat of his trapezius. “I am not your enemy.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“How could it not matter?”

Harry sighs, tenses and finches out of Scrimgeour’s grip, and feels a little dizzy. He hasn’t slept in a long time, and it’s been a long day.

He still doesn’t even know where to go, after all is said and done.

“I know it’s difficult for you right now. But this isn’t about you. And it really isn’t healthy for the Minister for Magic to be so obsessed with a sixteen year old boy-”

It feels like an explosion has hit his cheek, it burns so brightly and so suddenly. It takes a second for him to understand that Scrimgeour has hit him. He can taste a coppery tinge in his mouth, where his teeth have cut his cheek.

One hand is back to digging into his shoulder, the other is gripping his hair. “You stupid child. You stupid boy.” He shakes his hand, and Harry grimaces as his hair pulls his scalp quickly one direction, then the other. “Did you have a hand in killing Dumbledore?”

“No.”

“Good luck having anyone believe that.” Scrimgeour is hissing again, something unhinged in his eyes, and if Harry was capable of feeling anything at all right now, he would feel afraid.

“M-Minister. Sir.” The Minister’s secretary is there, open mouthed and shocked. His blond hair is mussed and he, too, looks like he hasn’t slept in a while. But the darkened bags under his eyes don't hide the shock morphing into horror on his face at all.

Scrimgeour lets go of him abruptly, and Harry stands, moves back until he’s by the door that the secretary is still frozen in.

“Oliver. Good.” Scrimgeour straightens his robes, looks flustered, won’t look directly at Harry. “Please see to it that Mr. Potter is sent back to Hogwarts. Miss Granger, being seventeen, can formally leave school, but that is not an option for him. See to it that he goes to Acting Headmistress McGonagall directly.”

Scrimgeour looks more composed now, though Harry notices the way that he sways by his desk and leans against it, just slightly. “And Mr. Potter. I will be seeing you and your friends shortly, to pass on the items listed in the will. After we’ve had time to look - to look over everything.”

Harry nods, doesn’t really care. So far, this is all turning out more or less like he’d hoped it would.

Oliver nods, once, then twice, and blinking, moves out into the hallway, waiting for Harry to follow.

Harry moves too, then pauses by the doorway. “I know that you aren’t my enemy, you know. And I’m sorry, I think, that I can’t help you. You and I both know, don’t we, that tides are turning against us? So, I guess, I wish you luck with everything.”

Scrimgeour stares down at his desk and says nothing. Harry shrugs, then follows Oliver down the hallway to a series of smaller fireplaces. Oliver still looks a little queasy, his arms crossed tight across his stomach.

Before he knows it, he is sent twirling through emerald flames until he’s spat out onto the Headmaster’s floor like a wad of flavorless chewing gum.

He staggers into a standing position while McGonagall stares down at him.

He has seen her look severe more times than he can count. He has always been intimidated by it, largely because every inch of her is intimidating, but also because she’s usually justified in being so. It’s easier to smirk back at Snapes’ scowls because the git would be scowling at him whatever he was doing. That’s not the case with McGonagall.

She too looks exhausted. And she too looks wired tight, uncertain, pale and sickly looking. Where his pity for Scrimgeour was not entirely nicely intentioned, this sadness for McGonagall comes up despite himself, despite the general distance he feels from everything, despite the fog of exhaustion. He feels simultaneously like an eleven year old boy being caught after giving away a dragon, and like an adult, looking at another adult, and both of their pains have enough of the same colors to create a mutual, dejected sort of abstract painting together. He’s sorry.

He can’t help but flinch back a little when McGonagall raises her arms, but her face isn’t filled with a manic anger, it’s filled with tears, and she slowly closes her arms around him.

“Mr. Potter. Harry. I’m so glad you’re okay. I didn’t know what to think when you and Miss Granger went missing. D-Dumbledore seemed to think you were safe. But I couldn’t understand how you both just left, just like that. Where have you been? Where is Miss Granger now? Mr. Weasley? Are they okay?”

He felt less thrown that time she gave him biscuits instead of yelling at him fifth year. He doesn’t know what to do with his hands, and they just hover weirdly over her back, but it doesn’t matter, because she lets him go, takes out a tartan handkerchief and dabs at her eyes quickly. She straightens up, shoves the cloth somewhere into her robes, and suddenly doesn’t look any different than she normally does.

She raises her eyebrows impatiently.

“Well?”

“Oh, um, they’re fine. Safe, Healthy, all that.”

“Why were you in France? Why did you leave school?”

He opens his mouth to say something smart, to shrug and scoff his way out of this. But if Scrimgeour isn’t his enemy, then McGonagall really isn’t.

As she stands there, tall and proper and practical, her face warring between severity and compassion, he feels a strange nostalgic respect for her, like he’s already gone, or like she is, like he’s remembering a stern grandmother he didn’t really like growing up, who always made him eat spinach and follow through on any thank you notes for presents he received, but who, upon reflection, was just looking out for him, and wanted him to grow into a good person. He’s not sure why he’s feeling this way right now, as he hasn’t ever met his grandmothers, and never even received gifts he would be made to write thank you notes for, but it seems appropriate, somehow.

She looks truly concerned now, and he wonders what his face looks like. He’s never felt more tired in his life, not after Sirius died at the battle at the Ministry and he destroyed this very office, not after the Triwizard tournament.

Strangely, it feels closest to how it felt after that night the Dursleys let Ripper corner him up a tree. By the time that woman called him off he was very tired, and his body was sore, but mostly he felt exhausted with the knowledge that they really, really, truly hated him and there was nothing to be done to fix it.

Him, sitting up in the branches, the slender bows digging into his bony thighs, the soft growls and sniffing below him, the Dursleys already inside, already bored of laughing at him, brought to him such a complete feeling of aloneness, somehow worse than being stuffed into the cupboard and forgotten, that it still burns a little in him to this day, the little embers of it sitting in the same, much larger fire of loneliness that is consuming him now.

“Mr. Potter?” McGonagall touches his shoulder softly, concern coloring every feature of her face.

He has this insane urge to tell her everything, learning about Tom Riddle with Dumbledore, about Horcruxes, about what Voldemort has done to do with them. What he has to do with them.

_But Dumbledore said to keep it between-_

_Oh yeah, let’s listen to Dumbledore, the man who has been plotting your death since who knows when-_

_But is he wrong? Was he? You do have to die, and maybe there is something to keeping this as quiet as possible._

_Exactly how far does your faith in Dumbledore go, you stupid boy?_

She has put her other hand on his other shoulder now, and is ducking to look into his downturn eyes.

He clears his throat. “I’m sorry, professor, really, I am. But I can’t tell you.”

He expects her face to morph into one of indignation, for her words to reprimand him for the mere idea of thinking his secrets are too big for her. But instead the intensity of her expression shifts higher, and her concern changes into fear, and suddenly he does feel very young, and does feel silly that he thinks his secrets are too big for her.

“What happened to your face? You’ve had a red mark there that’s been darkening all this time into a bruise. Did someone hit you?”

“Oh. Yeah. Scrimgeour.”

“Scrim-The Minister for Magic hit you?” Her shock is so strong that it brings out the Scottish tones into every syllable she’s speaking.

Harry shrugs, kind of laughs to himself. “Oh, don’t worry about it. It’s-It’s not, it wasn’t a -, it’s just not a big deal.”

Her nostrils flare and her jaw clenches, and for a second he thinks she might scream at him, but instead she puts her hand back onto his shoulder and steers him out of the office. In silence, she leads him to the infirmary and, without disturbing Madam Pomfrey, touches a bit of bruise removal to his face, which he rubs in. Then they go, also in silence, but in an unrushed sort of way, to the Gryffindor common room.

She pats his shoulder again as she leaves him and he feels better, weirdly, than he has in a long time. When he sleeps that night, after already feeling, only after such a short time, like one of those people he's seen on the tele, on one show or another, who come back home from Uni and always looks so displaced among their childhood bric-a-brac, he doesn’t dream of Dumbledore dying. Or of Voldemort speaking into his ear. But instead it's just him sort of glumly, sort of happily eating a plate of Spinach that’s been shaped into a heart.

The next morning is not met with any sort of peace, however. It feels like all that sand that's been grinding and grinding through his organs has finally broken through, and his insides are a mush of indistinguishable unpleasantness, that if he’s not careful, if he doesn’t hold himself just so, he will burst like an overstuffed balloon, and all his liquefied guts will spill onto the grass in front of everyone at Dumbledore's funeral.

He’s at Dumbledore’s funeral, and he twists his head up, stiffens his shoulders and crosses his arms over his chest as he sits in one of the white seats, watching and not watching all the others gather for the service. Even when Ginny and Luna come running up to him, their faces splotchy, eyes rimmed in red already, and hug him briefly around the shoulders and ask where he has been, he doesn’t unstiffen, as it feels like that is the only thing banding him together at this point. They sit to one side, Ginny nearest, and watch him with sad eyes and he can’t really look at them for too long, as it pulls and pulls on this very tenuous hold he has going.

The service starts and there are merpeople nearby. They start a song that makes him grit his teeth, but he already knows it’s too late. He hunches in on himself, starts when someone suddenly grabs his hand.

It’s Hermione and Ron. They’re wearing black and Ron, already crying, reaches over to Ginny and gives her a hug, and she slaps his shoulder, calls him a git and asks him where he’s been, and does he know how worried they all are. But Harry doesn’t really hear his response, instead he’s looking at Hermione’s slowly leaking eyes, and then behind her as Hagrid carries Dumbledore’s cloth covered body up the aisle. She pulls one arm away from his chest, then the other, and holds his hands in hers. But nothing is holding him together now, and when she reaches up to touch his cheek, he can feel all the gritty sludge that he’s made of now, boil up, and suddenly he’s crying, and no amount of clenched teeth or tense shoulders will stop it. Hermione pulls him into a hug as a small, tufted haired man starts speaking some sort of nonsense to the crowd.

“Why did he do this to me?” Harry whispers into her ear, his head resting against her curls. She doesn’t reply and instead squeezes him tighter. His breathing isn’t right, and every time he blinks the world shifts and tumbles away with drops of water. “I’ve tried so hard, you know, to do what’s right.”

She’s starting to rub circles on his back, her own breathing hitched and catching, her chin unsteady on his shoulder. “Do you think he’d be terribly disappointed in me, if I don’t want to die?”

She turns her face in towards his neck and he can feel her tears dripping down his shirt as she lets out a sob.

He puts his hand into her hair, pats her back with his other one. “I really don’t want to die.”

Hermione pulls away but grips his hands tighter. She leans in quickly, kisses his check. “I don’t want you to, either.”

He grins at her, shaky but real, and turns to look around, is surprised to see that that man is still talking.

He leans back in his chair and is also surprised to see that his guts haven’t spilled on the ground in front of everybody. He turns to look at Ron, who swings his arm around his shoulders, pulls him to his side briefly. They too share a grin. Ron leans in closer. “Do you remember what he said, our first start-of-term feast?”

He grins, leans back more to allow Hermione to hear. “Nitwit. Blubber. Oddment. Tweak.”

They all sort of snort, though Harry thinks his might be more of a sob, and Ron has to rub at his eyes afterward.

“When he picked me up from the Dursleys', he made their tea cups hit them over the head until they accepted them.”

Hermione lets out a sharp laugh, more of a brief guffaw, and Ron and Harry have to duck low and cover their mouths with their hands in order to not make a scene. Hermione’s whole body is shaking, though he can’t quite tell if it’s from tears or laughter. He’s not sure if it matters.

Ron leans forward, his voice breaking, “R-Remember what Bill said, fifth year, about how Dumbledore doesn’t care what they do, as long as they don’t take him off of the chocolate frog cards?”

He grins at his friend's grins, and for a second, he allows himself to miss them already, for when he has to leave again. 

They shift up right, realising that the man has stopped speaking. Suddenly, there is a bright flame, one that blooms and blooms, and then Dumbledore is gone. As centaurs shoot arrows out, Harry takes a moment, in the mix of all his different kinds of pain, to allow himself to miss the man that had left him well before he died.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heeey, how bout dem transitional chapters. Where are we transitioning to now? Tune in next time to find out!


	8. Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown

The next morning, he wakes up in his childhood bed for the last time and feels clearer headed than he has in many weeks.

As he walks at an even pace to the Headmistress’ office, he looks back and understands Hermione and Ron’s alarm so much better now. He can see now how he had walked in a fog, how it seemed as though he was seconds away from jumping from something very high in order to be done with it already. He now forgives Hermione completely for kidnapping him, a little startled at himself to realise that he hadn’t forgiven them already, that he was, somewhere in that fog he was in, quite furious with them. He hadn’t known.

But now, clear as day, he knows what he has to do, and no longer wants to feel bad about it; pretend to be brave but really just sink further into self pity.

He knocks on her door, a password still not set for the gargoyle below. She answers with raised eyebrows, but then lets him pass without a word, something in her shoulders shifting, her posture expecting and weary as she turns to him, closing the door behind her.

“I need you to get the Dursley’s out of their house and hidden now. I know the wards are supposed to break on my birthday, but as I don’t plan on going back, I’m not sure when they will break now.”

She stares at him, her hands clenched at her sides. She takes a step away, then turns on her heels and faces him. “And where will you go? You do realise that you are still a minor and that as your educator, I cannot just let you go without knowing that you are going home.”

Harry laughs. “I’m only underage for less than a month-”

“Unfortunately, that still counts. You are aware, aren’t you, that you will not be able to do magic until that time either?”

Harry sighs, leans back against the wall. “That would be my problem, though. I didn’t come here asking for permission, I’m asking for help from the Order to make sure that my last remaining relatives aren’t flambed by a bunch of death eaters for having the misfortune of being my blood.”

“Voldemort is aware that you left for sometime, do you know? We can’t know what his plan is for your relatives-”

“Then he’ll be aware that I’m back, too. He’ll assume, along with most people, that I’ll spend my last weeks as an under-aged wizard where I always have. That was the assumption you made, isn’t it? I think it might actually be safer to do this. But regardless, I still don’t plan on returning.”

Her nostrils flare, her posture stiff. “Surely you aren’t planning on going to Grimmauld?”

The ease he felt at the beginning of this conversation wavers slightly. It must show on his face because McGonagall scoffs. “The Order vacated that house the moment that Snape’s betrayal was known to everyone.”

“And you’ve what? Just left it open to him? No one has gone in and put up any kind of measures?”

She looks to the side. “Moody, has, in fact, gone through and made adjustments to triple ensure security and that nothing of our activities there can be gleaned from anything left-”

“Perfect, good enough-”

“If it isn’t good enough for us to trust it, then it is most definitely not good enough for you, who is being actively pursued by Voldemort.”

“It’s my house.”

“And if, somehow, Snape was able to leave something behind that we are unable to detect, some sort of entrance we don’t know about-”

“I don’t believe that Snape is more capable than Moody-”

“Then believe it. Surely, after all this, you don’t underestimate Snape?” Her voice wavers, and her expression takes on a dimension of something desperate he doesn’t fully understand.

He stares at her, his mind unchanged but not knowing what to say.

“Imagine that Snape has put in some sort of magical back door that none of us know about? You are there entirely by yourself, not allowed to do any magic, and a team of Death Eaters or Voldemort himself comes in? Then what will you do? You are a gifted wizard, Mr. Potter, but not even you would be able to get out of that.”

_Then that would be one Horcrux down, at least._

“It’s a risk, maybe. But not one I find too likely.”

“And if Mr. Weasley and Miss Granger are there? Are you willing to risk-”

“They won’t be.”

“You are being a stubborn child.”

Harry laughs a little, a third cousin of a laugh, dry air of derision puffing out more than any kind of humor. “Somehow I’ve been told that a lot lately. But still. I won’t go to the Dursleys' and you can’t keep me away from my own house. So despite your warnings, nothing has changed. I won’t return to the Dursleys' and they will need to be moved. I will go to Grimmauld, and the house security will have to protect me as well as it can, as it belongs to me.”

Something shifts in McGonagall’s face again. She almost looks curious now. Curious, or like something unpleasant is occurring to her, by the way her frown deepens but her eyes widen. “And then what?”

It’s his turn to look away. The silence drags on like a body being dragged over coals.

Some painful minutes later, McGonagall sighs. “It did occur to me, all those years ago when you were inevitably sorted into my house, that yours and the headmaster’s relationship would probably be closer than between most students and him.”

He realises with a start that she is staring at Dumbledore’s portrait where he is sleeping, his head leaning lightly against the frame. He can only manage a small glance at it before he has to look away.

“And then through the years I’ve seen you do incredible things. I’ve seen the way that he respected you more and more, how could he not? I know I did. I do.” She lets out a shaky breath. “And I saw the way that you idolised him, the loyalty so ingrained in you even by your second year that you were able to call Fawkes to you, which is far more remarkable than you realise.”

At this it feels like all the air has dried out from his lungs, like McGonagall had gone up to him and stuck her finger into the still open and weeping stab wound there, the one in between his ribs where his heart still beats on, though it feels like it shouldn’t be.

“It hadn’t still, somehow, occurred to me to worry that you would become like him.”

His head snaps over to her, in surprise. “You say that like it’s a bad thing-”

“It is. Don’t misunderstand me. I love - Loved - him as a mentor, employer and as a friend, but he was a deeply flawed person. Brilliant, caring, broad-minded, and very funny. But he had a hard time connecting to people. He didn’t trust anyone, I believe because of circumstances related to his youth. He was never very forthcoming about any of it, which was his usual style. I have always taken comfort in your relationships with Mr. Weasley and Miss Granger, because you have always been so close to them. It seems funny too, somehow, that after his death is when you seem most effected by him, keeping cards close to your chest, being stubborn, isolating yourself. These are not good things.”

Harry feels like she has taken her finger, hooked it and pulled. He slowly walks backward, as though trying to leave the room with a wild, dangerous animal in it. He sees emotions play across her face; sadness, regret, some sort of resolution, but he can’t really process it.

As he marches down the hallway to McGonagall’s old office, maybe still her current one, he pulls his wand out of his pocket, he had switched with Hermione yesterday, and, as he swings open her unlocked door, takes a pinch of floo powder, enlarges his trunk, and spins away in the green flames, he wishes that he could have held to that clarity from this morning for longer. He only had it for less than an hour. It makes him think, as he’s hanging suspended in the whirling greens flames, frozen by some sort of spell that eventually lets him loose, so that he spills out onto the grimy floor of his house, that he does understand Dumbledore better now. It’s harder to have everyone second guess you if you don't tell them to begin with.

He lays there for a while, letting the feeling of understanding Dumbledore better bulldoze him over and over until he feels like another stain on the rug below him.

When he wakes up the next morning, he lays still and feels as alone as he’s been aiming for since that night Hermione told him what he already knew, deep down.

Then he lets out a long breath and gets up.

He turns on the wireless, carefully skipping over anything dealing with Dumbledore or wizarding news in general. He ends up listening to Celestina Warbeck while he cleans up the house a little, unconsciously singing along, trying not to think of how disappointed Mrs. Weasley will be when he doesn’t come by this summer. Or most likely ever again.

_I've got a cauldron full of hot, strong love_

He finishes wiping down the kitchen counters.

_It's a recipe so rare_

Then, broom handle to his mouth, his voice cracking a smidgen on the word rare, his spins around, swiping up the floor, particularly around the fireplace.

_There's no potion or elixir that_   
_Could ever quite compare!_

He finishes up, pushing the dust bunnies into the ashes with a flourish at the same time as the song’s last notes warble out.

He takes the wireless to the other rooms, changing the music to something more upbeat any time a station starts on some news or has a sad song.

He picks the only bedroom on the first floor to sleep in. It has a very creepy atmosphere, generally used by the elder Black family members so they didn’t have to climb up and down so many stairs. It could follow reason then, that a number of people had died in that room, and though never discussed, people tended to avoid it.

As he cleans the simple dark furnishings, lays out the clean white linens that are in the dresser drawers and opens the curtains to the single slim and tall window, showing an overcast day, he feels a little comforted.

There is no need to pretend here.

He only really cleans a few rooms, just enough to live in, carrying around the wireless as he goes.

And when he falls asleep that night, he sleeps well.

The next day he slowly climbs the stairs, closing all the room’s doors, sneaking quietly past the portrait. It’s funny, in a way, how he felt when he first came here that the house was so dark and evil looking, and now he thinks back fondly on all the noise and activity that used to be stuffed in between these moldy walls. The house feels like an abandoned mansion, like one of those places school aged children would throw rocks through the window at, like they would hit each other on the shoulder and build a false sort of courage, and break into the house. Their giggles would die down and their terror would build and build until it came to an unbearable peak as they round the corner, only to find his manky face staring up at them while he’s on the floor scrubbing or something, all pale and tired looking, three minutes off from being a ghost himself, and they would run screaming from the house.

He reaches the top floor, checks that Sirius’ room is locked. He turns to look at his brother's across the narrow hallway, looks at the pretentious name on the little sign. Regulus Arcturus Black.

_I wonder what it’d be like to have a brother. I can’t imagine that it’s much like what it was like with Dudley. I should hope not at least. And I imagine that it’s different then what it’s like with Ron and his brothers. I love it when they call me an honorary Weasley, but I don’t think it’s the same thing. To have a complete peer, one you don’t have to necessarily even like, but one that was there, really there, saw the same things, knew the same people, had the same parents, who knows how you are through different phases of your life. It sounds really nice. Or maybe not. That’s a lot of information to have about a person who might not necessarily like you. I mean, Regulus hated -_

_Oh._

“Oh.”

He stands straighter, touches the edges of the letters of the sign.

R.A.B.

He scoffs, starts walking down the narrow stairs at a steady clip. He goes into the kitchen, opens up Kreacher’s little hideaway, flings everything every which way. Of course it’s not there, that would be absurdly easy. Way too easy.

He laughs to himself. He needs to call Kreacher here, to question him on if he’s seen it. He has a feeling that he has. He has a feeling that he’s on to a true lead. The familiar threads of connection are working through his brain, his tried and true instincts are ringing with anticipation of movement.

And for the first time in his life, he doesn’t want to answer the siren’s call to action.

He had only been there a few days. He thought he’d had more time to settle, more time to think, come up with some sort of plan to make this go by as quickly as possible. Honestly, he was sort of hoping to collect his thoughts at least until his birthday, so that he could then, with less of a sense of dread, perform magic without being traced. He’s fairly certain they wouldn’t be able to trace him here but has been trying to avoid it.

But he could call Kreacher without using his wand. He could get pretty far with this, he was certain.

He doesn’t want to. He stands frozen in the kitchen, staring into the middle distance, and only feels panic. He’s not ready yet. To start. For weeks it’s all he’s wanted, to stop the feeling of getting ever closer to the earth, falling from great heights with no parachute, and to just get there.

But this is too sudden. He’d thought it would take longer to get this going.

And he realises, and it seems obvious in retrospect, that he in fact isn’t sick of the fall, but is in fact very much dreading hitting the earth.

Swallowing thickly, he grabs his wand and heads to the front door. Some part of his brain is screaming at him to not go outside, don’t be stupid, don’t be stupid for once, but it’s like the rest of his brain is made of pulsing wires that are sparking and setting on fire and screaming warning alarms at him and he has to move right now.

So he’s outside, the sun in his face, the air warm and gold in front of him, such a different color to the faded everything of Grimmauld. He walks away, notices the house sliding out of existence in the corner of his eye as he goes. He doesn’t stop walking, passing chip shops, realising that he doesn’t have any money whatsoever on him, keeps walking past crowds of people that he glances at too long, nervous of them. He walks and walks, past cinemas, clothing stores, rows and rows of houses, voices of people talking in them, cars passing with radios going, and eventually the fire going in his brains slows to a smolder.

His feet hurt, he doesn’t know where he is, and he’s starving.

The sun is starting to get lower now, light angling over the tops of buildings, the shadows of trees swaying on one side of the road. He sits for a second on a bench by a small stream of water, staring at a broken beer bottle glistening in the lower light as water runs over it, already rounding some of the edges.

There are a group of boys, somewhere around his age, standing in front of a video store. A couple of them have tore open a bag of candy and are popping them into their mouths, one laughing loudly at what the other said, showing the half chewed candy. The other boy reaches over and puts his hand over his mouth, saying something, which just makes the other boy pull his head back and open his mouth more, moving the glob of colorful candy to the middle of his tongue. Another boy, who hand been talking to the fourth one of their group, turns and slaps the back of his head, so that the glob falls onto the street. They all laugh, chatting and walking away, the fourth boy smiling after them, shaking his head. He turns and accidentally looks at Harry, their eyes making brief contact, his face so easy and happy looking, and Harry feels such a stab of jealousy he can almost taste the parseltongue coming out of Voldemort's mouth, his scar prickling just a little. 

The boy's smile slips and he turns away, catching up with his friends who have walked a few feet off. 

There is a loud crack right next to him and Harry stands, wand in hand, curse halfway forming in his mouth.

It’s Hermione.

She gives him a small smile, if smiles could age and wither and become brittle on a young woman’s face.

“Hullo.”

He just stares at her. She rolls her eyes, reaches out her hand so that it’s sliding into his, oddly familiar after these last terrible weeks.

And then they are being squeezed and squeezed, only to appear in a clearing. Hermione pulls them forward and Harry feels the magic he felt on the beach that one day, wards he thinks.

She reaches over, while he stares at what looks like the tent the Weasleys borrowed for the world cup, and plucks his wand out of his hand, as though snatching back her favourite quill from him during Charms.

He moves backwards, watching her carefully, a few feet, feels a turning sensation as the world becomes directionless, and steps out onto the area outside of the other side of the tent, Hermione already turned to look at him.

He puts his hands on his hips. “You have to be fucking kidding me.”


	9. Give me my robe, put on my crown; I have immortal longings in me

He doesn’t look well.

Hermione’s staring at him across the small space around the tent the wards afford them.

He’s hair is messier than usual, sort of greasy looking. He has the faintest of patchy stubble along his jaw. Overall he looks ruffled. But that’s not really it. She’s definitely seen him look scruffier.

His posture is square, his hands clenched by his side, and she sees the anger in it, the way she had expected the first time around. He had been more shocked than anything before, incredulous but still willing to listen. He had left and hid in that bedroom. But even then, she had been somewhat surprised by his lack of exploding.

Now his hands move to his hips and he bites out, voice nasty, “You have to be fucking kidding me.”

But that isn’t it either. She expects anger, though she’s not looking forward to it, knowing how Harry has the words to hurt her more than anyone else. No. There’s something off. Something wild about the eyes, something else outside of the anger there.

He looks kind of frightened and more than anything else, that frightens her.

She stuffs their wands into her beaded bag. “Why were you there? In that part of London, I mean?”

“No. No. You don’t get to ask questions first.”

“You didn’t ask a question though, it was more of a statement.”

“You can’t just keep kidnapping me, Hermione!” His voice is gaining in volume.

“Let’s not start shouting, if you please.” She knows her tone is annoying even as she says it. Her nose is even moving upwards as she speaks.

It makes her think of when she was twelve and the only way she knew how to talk while being afraid to talk was by pretending she was too good to hear any negative responses. Queen Hermione the Correct can’t hear peasants scoff at her.

Harry spins on his heel, turning his back to her, looking out into the rest of the dense forest outside of the clearing. He rubs at the back of his neck, pulls his hand through his hair, making it stand up even more.

When he turns around, his face is stone.

“I’m not joking, Hermione. Give me back my wand.”

“You think I’m joking? This isn’t a-a prank or something Harry.”

He steps closer. “You’re always like this, you know?”

“I’m not going to listen to personal-”

“You always think you know best. Like in third year, when you had my firebolt-”

“Oh yes, the precious firebolt-”

“It’s why we didn’t like you at first, you know?”

She wishes she had a book to clutch to her chest, the way she did when the children at primary school would start in on her.

“And you have many other great qualities, Hermione. Many. But that one’s been a persistent pain-”

“That doesn’t have to do with this, Harry. I thought you had-”

“It doesn’t? So you, not once, but twice now, haven't bodily brought me somewhere without my permission, have taken my wand from me-”

“Because you won’t listen to reason-”

“No! Because I won’t listen to you. How self-righteous can you-”

“I THOUGHT YOU HAD CHANGED YOUR MIND!” They are now standing very close to each other, and Hermione feels something she’s never really felt before. It’s like she’s watching herself from behind, the rational part of her watching in shock as the rest of her bursts apart. “I THOUGHT THAT YOU HAD COME TO YOUR SENSES, AT DUMBLEDORE’S FUNERAL. B-But instead you just tricked me, you bastard, you tricked me and went on your merry way to go and die anyway.”

He looks a little shocked, but Harry was never one to let a little yelling stop him. His face hardens and her stomach clenches in fear.

  
“I had changed my mind. I don’t want to die. I’ll try to figure something out. But you’ll have to forgive me for not wanting to watch my friends panic all the time, this is hard enough for me without you two in the background, always reminding me of what I have to lose.”

It’s oddly, unexpectedly sweet, and her stomach unclenches a little. But just then, just after, his mouth twists into something mean.

“Besides, we’ve already established that books aren’t going to help us, so what exactly is the use of you, hmm? Outside of taking my wand and stressing me out further?”

There it is. Somehow knowing that it was coming, expecting it to come a long time ago, doesn't make the ache she feels at those words better.

Her eyes fill with tears, despite herself, and Harry’s face crumbles, the stoniness folding into itself, a small rock slide exposing something raw and grated underneath.

“You should go, Hermione. Give me my wand back and go. There’s nothing good happening here.”

She knows that’s his aim. And for all that it hurt, and for how it hit a bruise on her, he isn’t terribly good at being cruel.

“The Dursleys didn’t - don’t - love you.”

He stares at her, shakes his head. “So we’re just saying hurtful things now?”

She shakes her head, lets out a long breath, dabs at her eyes with the back of her hands.

“It’s easier to just have the stomachache, isn’t it? To curl up with yourself and grit your teeth through it, then have your aunt push you away.”

He looks a little stunned, redness creeping up his neck. “You- You heard all that-”

She waves her hand, a loose, dismissive gesture. “You know I won’t push you away, but still. This is all so uncertain. You, at least, know it won’t hurt as much if you’re by yourself. But you’d be amazed, Harry, how much better a stomachache is when someone does hug you and give you proper medicine that will help. So much better than gritting your teeth through it alone.”

He looks away from her, stuffs his hands into the pockets of his jeans. “There isn’t any medicine for this.”

Something in her settles. She shrugs. “Then at least you’ll have the hug. And at least we can try. Maybe there isn’t any medicine. But.”

She pauses, an image floating in her mind, a dream she had, something of a ghost, all white, but only the pupils remain, rings through her, and she shivers. “My instincts were right, and they warned us in time to maybe do something about it. So maybe my instincts, and yours, as they’ve always done, will save you.”

She reaches out her hands to Harry, who’s staring at her with such an uncertain expression. It’s a strange movement, half like she’s asking to be handed something, half like she’s giving something away.

He hesitates. “What if it hurts you? Helping me, I mean? Getting your hopes up, trying and trying, only for it to - to end in failure?”

Once, when they were first years and Hermione was new to their little gang, Harry and her were walking down the hallway, Ron chatting with Neville up ahead.

Malfoy walked past, knocking Harry in the shoulder as he went, hissing under his breath, “Oh, I see, hanging around stuck up dirty-blooded know-it-alls, then?”

Harry turned on his heel, his face red, but Malfoy had already turned the corner, the end of his cloak whipping behind him, remnants of his unpleasant laugh still in the air.

“Urgh.” Harry looked frustrated, glanced over to her.

A new worry entered her brain. What if Malfoy picks on Harry more, now that they’re friends? He’s always whispering such mean things to her.

“Sorry. I hope he doesn’t pick on you more, we don’t get on-”

She looked up from her hands to his face in surprise. “Oh. It-it will be difficult for him to be worse to me than he already is. Don’t worry.”

He shook his head. “Let me know if it picks up though, I’ll- I don’t know, I’ll get into a real duel with him or something.”

She rolled her eyes, but was smiling. “Oh yes, because that went so well last time.”

He sighed. “It doesn’t seem sporting to just kick him at the top of some stairs though. But I will, if you’d like?”

To her surprise, she laughed. It felt like the first time she’s been able to show she has a sense of humour.

The grin on Harry’s face after her laughter slid down in the next few seconds of silence, and she found herself staring back down at her hands again.

She wished she was better at making friends.

“What’s your favourite colour?” He asked it a bit shyly and winced. “Sorry, I know it’s a lame question, I just…” He shuffled, pulling his bag higher on his thin shoulders.

“You just?”

He shrugged, looking down at the floor. “It just seems like something you should know about your friends, favourite colour, their middle names… I don’t know.”

She smiled at him. They were rather silly questions, simple. But she felt so moved, the intentions were so sweet. “Purple and Jean. Yours?”

He grinned up at her, something soft there. “Red and James.”

And now, standing in the middle of a forest clearing, the world getting ink black around them, she feels a strange sameness to that memory.

“First, I’d much rather fail after trying than fail and not try at all. And second, there would be no saving me from that pain. I love you. So, that’s the end of it, isn’t it? I might as well be around.”

He reaches his hands out, places them between hers, then pulls her closer, encircling her in a somewhat stiff and awkward hug. But still she grins into his shoulder. It’s the first time he’s ever initiated one with her.

“I’m sorry for saying all that earlier, I don’t think you’re self-righteous-”

Hermione snorts.

“Alright. I don’t think that you’re useless just because the answer isn’t going to be in a book. I don’t think that at all.”

She gives him a squeeze and then they move back, grinning at each other like they just told each other their middle names.

“Do you promise to stop running away from us?”

He nods, then shakes his head, but then his head somehow rotates into a half nod, half shake.

“I’m getting some mixed signals here.”

He crosses his arms over his chest. “I just - I don’t know. Maybe you’re on to something. I haven’t exactly had the best examples. So maybe I’m not thinking clearly. I certainly don’t feel like I know what I’m doing. But I’m having a hard time thinking that it would be better for you, and Ron, to hang around me during this mess, when the ending seems… you know, bad.”

“But I-”

“I know. I listened, I promise. I won’t try to do all this without you. Unless-”

“Unless?”

“Unless I really need to.”

She frowns at him. “How would that be possible? If we are-”

He shakes his head. “I don’t have a set scenario in mind. I just don’t want to break my word later. What I can promise you is that I’m not going to try to run off and get the Horcruxes alone again. I guess the, uh, the hug even with no medicine comment made sense.”

She considers him, her feelings in some sort of rotation between frustration, happiness, and resignation.

She will have to take what she can get. If Harry’s going to trust her enough to work on this with her, despite his desire to go alone, then she needs to return the trust. She digs her arm into her purse, pulling out his wand.

He takes it with a sigh. “Where is Ron, anyway?”

“At the Burrow. He’s helping them get ready for the wedding.”

He blinks. “The wedding. I forgot.”

“You’ve had other things on your mind. We’re both still invited, by the way. Ron will come and join us afterward.”

“Join us? What is this, anyway?”

“The tent you know, from the World Cup?”

“But why stay in the tent when we have Grimmauld?”

“We have Grimmauld? But I thought, with Snape-”

“I’ve been staying there the last few days. It’s fine.”

“Oh. Then. I guess.” She looks around the clearing, feeling oddly embarrassed. It is, despite the intensity of the conversation, all a little anticlimactic.

She starts the spells to take the tent down, Harry watching with interest.

“This will make a great back up.”

She nods, focusing on getting the tent to go small, placing it in her bag once it’s little enough.

“I’m glad Ron wasn’t here.”

She turns to him, grabbing his hand, and, inexplicably, feels a blush forming at his words.

“Why’s that?”

He shrugs. “I’m pretty sure Ron would pass out from the sheer feelings of it all before most of that was even said.”

She spins and they are crushed, then spilling out onto the front step of Grimmauld. Harry opens the door.

“You’re absolutely right. It’s the teaspoon thing I’ve mentioned before.”

They step into the hall.

“He would simply be overloaded-”

All the dust in the hallway kicks up, pulling together to form something that strikes her first as familiar in all it’s monotone paleness.

Dumbledore strides furiously down the hallway, a nightmare. “Severus Snape?”

Hermione is frozen. She hates this about herself, always has, in quiet moments after the action is over.

She doesn’t really know why she’s in Gryffindor.

“No. No. We aren’t Snape.” Harry’s voice is hoarse, desperate. The thing is almost upon them.

She has a feeling that being touched by the gray fingers extending inches away from them would be bad. She wants to step back, shout, anything, but she stays frozen.

“We didn’t kill you.” His voice is almost a wheeze.

The apparition bursts into dust just as the tips of its fingers almost touch her hair.

Then it is silent save for their harsh breaths.

“That was new.” He’s already moving forward, his voice a forced kind of steady.

“I-I thought you’ve been here.”

“It was my first time coming through the front door.”

“Oh.”

They sit in the silence in the living room, Hermione’s hands still shaking, Harry leaning against the arm of the sofa as though he is a doll left by a neglectful child, staring glassily into the middle distance.

“So. So.” She clears her throat. Harry’s eyes drift over to her.

“We are more or less on the same page. Finally.” She’s using that tone again, but at least now her hands are still.

“First, we need to figure out how to get the Horcrux out of you. Then we can focus on getting rid of the others.”

Harry nods, puts his hand to his mouth. “Right. And we’ve established that we aren’t going to find an answer in any books, probably. So we’re going to have to experiment, I guess.”

“Right.”

They sit in silence. Hermione has a thought, feels a giggle come on, which pops out like a bubble before she can contain it.

“What?” He looks a little amused, his eyebrows raised.

She shakes her head, waving her hand, but then another giggle comes out and she finds herself hiding her face in her hands, feeling a little mad.

“What is it?” Harry’s now suppressing a laugh, his voice thick with it.

“It’s just- It’s just.” She swings her feet up onto the sofa she’s sitting on, staring up to the ceiling, following the cracks with her eyes. She pushes her hands up to her throat. “You have to wait, and not jump into an action that might kill you, and I have to give up on finding answers in books. Not exactly our strong suits, eh?”

Harry starts laughing too, and then they can’t seem to stop. Harry’s bent double, his head on his knee. Hermione curls into a ball. Every time they start to slow down, they take one look at each other’s red, painfully laughing faces and fall back into it.

Eventually, Harry, gasping, gets out, “Oh no, we’re screwed.”

That sets them off again until Hermione has to stand, sucking in big gulps of air. “Oh no, it hurts, my side hurts.”

Harry stands too and they’re careful to not look at each other for a few minutes. Eventually their breathing evens.

“So. Any ideas on how to start experimenting to get a bit of a different soul out of my body?”

This almost sets them off again, but they are able to choke it back, huffing back into silence.

“Maybe we should find a Horcrux to try some stuff on?”

“You mean one that doesn’t have me attached to it?”

“Yes, it might be good to start there, thinking on it.”

“I see. For weeks it’s been, finding the Horcruxes isn’t as important as you Harry blah blah blah, and we need to focus on your soul, not Voldemort’s blah blah blah. And you’ve even kidnapped me twice about it, but lo and behold, we need to find one anyway.”

Hermione rolls her eyes to the ceiling. “Oh do shut up.”

“No, don’t think I will. Besides, I think I have a lead on one, the locket, I mean.”

Hermione feels a charge run through her, intense, though whether or not it's a good feeling remains a mystery as the current makes her head snap over to him. “What!?”

He shrugs, staring into the fire. “R.A.B. I think he was Sirius’ brother.”

Hermione’s mind starts the familiar motions of sifting through information, memories half forming before they're dismissed, sentences and phrases standing out in bold that matter, and she turns on her heel to look into Kreacher's room.

“I’ve already looked there.” Harry’s voice is soft and it stills her. “I figure we can call him here, though. Get him to tell us where it might be.”

Hermione nods, raising her eyebrows at him. But he just stares back, and his expression is unreadable to her. But again, there is something around the eyes, something there that seems a little wild, desperate, frightened.

She frowns at him, but he just shrugs and clears his throat. “I’m just tired, you know? Let’s call him here first thing tomorrow.”

It’s unlike him, and she feels unsettled, even as he starts making chatter, even as he pulls her towards the bathroom, talking about all the mold he was able to scrape out.

She feels like she’s missing something obvious, but clarity doesn’t come, no matter how much she stares at him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! I just want to say that I very much appreciate everyone's reviews, particularly those who are so consistent on commenting on many of the chapters, like Bonsly24, LadySpartacus, craneyourneck, ollievie, heiro, Moll, and others, who I hope I have't offended if I didn't list. You all give me much motivation and inspiration. 
> 
> Also, I dooo plan on having more Ron in this fic, if anyone is worried that I've given him the boot.


	10. The evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones.

“Maybe.” He sighs, leans back against the grimy sofa. “Maybe if we stare at it long enough, the bit of Voldemort’s soul will just pop out by itself, then we can get it with a firm Avada Kedavra.”

“Yes. As much as we’re staring at it, might as well hope for that. Good as anything else we have going.”

They sit in silence, watching the locket gleam in the dim light of the candles.

As much as Harry had made fun of her for wanting to find a horcrux after going on about not needing to find them for so long, she feels he’s being very recalcitrant about actually doing anything with it.

It had been a simple business in retrieving it. They called Kreacher, who, after hearing that they wanted to help him achieve his biggest burden, let him talk through his biggest regret, told them about how Mundungus took it. They sent him to find him, and the next day he came back with it clutched in his aged fist, muttering about cowards.

And there it lies, on the dark stained coffee table.

Maybe because she knows what it is, but it seems wrong somehow, too heavy, too shiny, not the right kind of shiny, all polished gold, but as though it was recently dipped in oil, that it might drip at any second.

Why does it look so altered and wrong, while Harry is still just Harry?

Is he though?

Her eyes drift up to his face and she knows she’s staring, and she can see Harry notice, but her mind is elsewhere and nowhere, all at once.

Is he not altered? He was so angry after he came back. He had a right to be, of course, but maybe that wasn’t all.

Maybe some of it was the wrongness, like this oily shine.

Her mind pulls through images, half afraid to think it. Harry screaming at them in this very house, Harry breaking the bowl of the murtlap essence, Harry staring at the wall in the hospital wing as her chest stung and pulled and ached, something dark about him.

All those empty smiles, this last year.

His face, just as he turned to her, just as she appeared next to him a couple of days ago. She could have sworn, just for a split second, fast enough to think it might have been anything else, anything at all, that his eyes gleamed just a touch red.

Harry’s frowning at her now. But she doesn’t say anything, instead she breaks her gaze, reaches out, and touches the locket.

She holds it in her palm, thinks about all of Harry’s moods. She rubs it with her thumb, wishes she could just rub away that oily feeling.

He looked so angry, all those times. Not always the same way, but anger was definitely there.

She rubs and rubs, and the oily feeling is both aggravating and satisfying at once, like running your fingers over a scar.

She had gotten a scar, once, when she was running away from some girls chasing her with a brush sometime in primary. She tripped and skid, hit her leg against some wood that had been lying out in the park. Her thigh bled and bled, to the point the girls didn’t say anything more, their mean shrieking laughter dying off as they simply stared, then turned and fled. She had hobbled home and her mum cleaned it and her dad determined that she wouldn’t need stitches. But it took forever to heal and left a thin white and jagged scar, thicker at one end more than the other. It’s almost completely faded now, but in certain lights and angles it’s still there, a shade lighter than the rest of her skin.

The locket’s oily feeling has changed, in some odd way, against her thumb, smoother, less caustic to rub through. It feels heavier in her hand.

She never thought she’d feel envious of that little girl running away from some mean spirited children, but she does. Even though she has friends now, even though she’s a skilled witch, and she’s managed to tame her hair a bit and shrink her teeth. At least she knew what to do. She knew she could go home to her parents. Her parents who love her, though they no longer understand her, and they would fix it.

But they can’t fix this mess, they can’t fix the locket becoming warm and comfortable in her hand, they can’t fix her best friend, left so alone, left only to hopelessness. They don’t even know her at all anymore. She wiped their memories, shipped them off to a different country.

That little girl didn’t have to ship her parents off, she could just go to them, have them wipe her tears, give her a sugar free ice cream, kiss the top of her head. Instead she has to sit here, in this musty old house, almost as alone as the stupid boy she did this all for, the one who likes to yell at her, who laughs at the planners she spent hours making, who doesn’t even love her-

“Hermione?” Harry’s sitting next to her, worried looking. He slowly reaches out, takes the locket from her, places it back on the table.

She takes his hand, warm and dry, smooth except for the creases. It feels so infinitely better than that locket ever could.

“I think, if you get in the right head space, the locket can change, no, not change, enhance your mood. Enhance isn’t it either. I think it- it takes the worst thoughts you have and just- just pulls them out more and more, more than you’d ever let it by yourself. I think you should hold it for a while. Just to see. To see if I’m right.”

Harry’s running his thumb over the back of her hand, and she feels all those awful thoughts drift away, slink back to the place of her mind she doesn’t care for and doesn’t spend too much time in. He’s still staring at the locket, and the look, the frightened look that makes her stomach clench, is coming over his face, edging in at the corners.

The fire bursts green and they stand, their wands at the ready, but the long, lanky figure is immediately familiar as he coughs and pats the soot off of him.

“Cor, that spell that makes you hang there in the flames is something, isn’t it? Not sure if I like it, but I do have to wonder what happens if someone without permission tries to-” Ron breaks off, glancing down at their hands with raised eyebrows.

Hermione ignores this but still lets Harry’s hand go to pick up the locket by the chain. “Excellent timing Ron. Hold this.”

He glances between them, the questioning expression staying the same, but relaxing somewhat as he stares at the necklace, takes it from her hand. He holds it in his palm. “Bleh. Why does it feel like this?”

“It’s a horcrux.” Harry’s voice is dry.

“Urgh!” Ron shakes his hand, his face pulling into a terrified expression. The locket clunks to the floor and he kicks it so that it slides across the warn rug.

“Wh-You can’t just hand me a bit of You-Know-Who’s soul all casual like, Hermione. You have to warn a fellow first. And. And wow. It’s not even been a week. I’ve been at the house, folding bleeding napkins and ducking away from my mum and you’ve been out here finding one of them? That’s- That’s-”

He’s staring at them in amazement, glancing between them and the locket, his posture a bit stiff, like he’s worried it’s going to start scuttling towards him.

“I thought that we were going to try to get the one out of Harry first?” Ron sits, watching as Harry goes and picks it up by the chain.

“We thought it would be best to try out different ways of removing the bit of the soul first from, you know, an inanimate object. To see if we could do it without damaging it, I mean.” Hermione takes the locket from Harry and goes over to Ron, holding it out to him. “I just held it for awhile and I think it affected my mental state. I would appreciate it if you would hold it too, to see if it does something similar.”

Ron frowns up at her. “You want me to hold onto a bit of his soul and see if it changes my mental state? Because it did yours? Are you sure it stopped?”

Hermione flicks him on the head.

“Oi. Alright then. No reason to get violent.” He takes it from her, staring down at it in his hand.

“It really does feel gross,” he mutters, and starts rubbing it with his other hand, like he's about to roll it like dice.

Hermione sits back down next to Harry and they watch him for a minute.

“How does it feel?” She knows it’s too soon to ask, but his face hasn’t changed at all, a slight grimace.

“Like my two best mates are watching me rub a locket with a Dark Lord's soul in it as though they expect a boggart to pop out. Could you, I don’t know, talk about something? This is just off.”

She turns to face Harry, who leans back against the arm of the sofa. They stare at each other for a second before he grins. “So. How’ve you been?”

This isn’t great timing, but when is it ever? She can’t seem to make herself grin back. “I erased my parent’s memories and sent them off to Australia.”

Harry’s grin slips away immediately, as though it was never there at all, and she regrets saying anything, a little.

“Oh. I-” He seems a little lost. “I’m sorry.”

She shakes her head. “I would have had to anyway, you know. It doesn’t seem like it’s going to be great for muggleborns here one way or another, very soon. I don’t want them to know.”

He still can’t seem to look her in the eye, frowning at the wall over her shoulder.

“How’d it go?” Ron asks, and the grimace on his face has changed some, now just a general looking frown.

“You knew?” Harry sounds surprised. She supposes it’s odd for her and Ron to have secrets without him.

Ron smirks a little, though she can’t quite work out why he would.

“Yeah, we hashed through different plans before the different times Hermione’s kidnapped you.”

Harry frowns at him at that, too, though she can’t exactly work out why he would either.

“It went fine. I mean smoothly. They- They seemed happy as they left.”

Ron’s movement seems less like his trying to scrape the oily feeling off with his palm and seems more rhythmic with it now. He’s no longer smirking, but he is staring at Harry with an odd sort of meanness.

Harry notices and swallows and looks back at her. “So it seems we really are at it alone then. I hope-” He pauses, swallows, shakes his head, just a little. “I’ll try my best.”

“We. We’ll try our best.” They grin at each other.

Ron scoffs, but when they look at him, he just turns to the side, his eyebrows drawn together. He’s holding the locket between his hands now, less rubbing, more squishing it between them, as though praying.

They turn to look at each other again. Hermione sighs. “How are you, then?”

He gives her a small grin, more of a twitch of the corner of his mouth and shrugs. “I don’t want to touch it.”

She leans forward, her eyebrows raised.

He sits in silence for a few seconds but then the words seem to leave him in one long stream. “It’s just very very, I don’t know, gross, so gross, to think that he’s in here, somehow.” He touches the tips of his fingers to his scar. “I wonder what it’s been doing to me. I knew I had a connection with him, you know? But somehow, the soul - it - it seems so much worse. Intimate, I guess. I’m afraid if I touch it, it will make it worse, somehow.”

_Ah, some insight into that frightened expression he’s been having._ “Did you notice it when you held the diary?”

He shakes his head. “No, but then, he wasn’t really back then, was he?”

She wonders how much a difference that would make.

“You’re always so bleeding tragic, aren’t you?” Ron’s twisted the other way now, staring Harry down.

“Excuse me?” He looks bewildered.

“It’s just always something with you, init? I know it’s not your fault but, it’s all just a little much, sometimes-”

“Ron. Put the locket down.” Her voice is sharp.

He stares at her a second, opens his mouth to spit something mean out, she’s sure, but instead he slaps the locket down and stands, starts walking around the sitting room with his hands on his hips, blowing breath out as though he had been exercising. They watch him pace for a minute, his ears becoming less red, his breathing evening out, his shoulders loosening.

He stops, looks at him with a sorry sort of face. “Blimey. I- I don’t like that thing at all.”

“No. It - it doesn’t bring the best thoughts forward, does it?” She whispers.

Harry opens his mouth to say something, but shakes his head, takes a deep breath. “Right. Okay. So. This horcrux definitely affects people’s moods. So. I should. I should, then. Right, yeah. We have to know how it interacts with other - other horcruxes.”

With his typical type of bravery, he reaches out and picks up the locket too, holds it in his hand before closing his fingers around it, making a fist.

Ron and Hermione glance at each other. Ron shrugs and lays down on the sofa, his arm over his eyes, clearly not wanting to talk.

In the silence, Hermione leans against the arm of the sofa, pulls out a book about ward spells.

She’s surprised to find that she’s able to focus on it pretty well. And for a minute it all seems so normal; her reading, Ron dozing off, Harry concentrating and pensive. If she doesn’t look up too much, if she lets her version around the book blur a little, she can almost pretend like they're in the Gryffindor common room, Dumbledore in his own tower, her parent’s at home, reading her latest letter.

Sometime passes. Eventually Ron rolls over, crosses his arms over his chest. “Well?”

Harry shrugs. “It doesn’t feel good, that’s for sure. It feels- I don’t know. It feels like I’ve been sitting in a room with Snape for eight hours or something.”

“That’s it?” She places her bookmark, lets the book fall closed with a muted clap.

He frowns at her, but just places the locket on the table, takes a few deep breaths. “Yeah. That’s it.”

Ron and Hermione trade glances.

“Maybe you’ve built up a kind of immunity or something?” Ron says this softly, knowing that’s not exactly a good thing.

Harry looks down at his hands. “Yeah, probably.”

“It would make sense that you would be better at managing it than either of us. Would - Would you mind if I try something?” She reaches out for the locket, stands.

Harry nods, watching apprehensively as she comes closer, dangling the locket in front of his face.

His eyes almost cross as he watches her put it, gently, softly, against his scar.

He gasps, leaning back, but, for a second, as though the locket and scar are magnets, the locket follows him. He grits his teeth, but before he raises his arm to push it away, Hermione pulls, and the locket falls away, dangling and slimier looking than ever.

He’s scar is red and irritated looking, his face set in pain. Though she never likes to see him that way, she can’t help but smile.

It’s his scar, not him. Not all of him. It’s not woven through his blood, his bones. It’s not in his molecules, twined through his DNA. It’s there, only there.

There has to be a way to remove it.

And though it solves nothing, it still feels like a victory.

Ron takes it from her, sets it on the table, stands next to her and looks down at Harry. “You okay?”

“Yeah. Yes. That- That was unpleasant. Weird. It-” He pauses, swallows, shakes his head. “It felt so weird.”

They stand in silence for a minute but then the clock chimes and Ron sighs. “I need to head back, I bet Mum is having kittens, she’s been so nervous about where you all have been. I’ll come back soon. It’s been-” He rubs the back of his neck, steps towards the fireplace. “It’s been enlightening, I guess.” He shrugs at them, smiles a little half grin, and they wave as he spins away.

She yawns, which Harry catches, his jaw spreading wide. “Let’s go to bed.”

They have been sleeping on the sofas, an awkward sleepover. She doesn’t want to be alone, but the idea of another night of an ancient spring digging into her hip sounds impossible.

They brush their teeth, standing side by side. He finishes first and sits on the edge of the bathtub.

“Don’t take this the wrong way, but would you like to share a bed with me?”

She chokes on her toothpaste a little.

Harry, flushing, adds in hastily, “It’s just. I don’t know about you, but this house has always been very creepy to me, and I don’t like the idea of you being in another room in case something happens and we need to leave quickly. I actually cleaned and changed out the sheets of the death bedroom, and I know we’ve been sleeping on the couches, but I don’t know, if we are going to sleep in the same room, might as well do it on a bed, you know?”

Hermione spits into the sink, wipes her face, considers him.

He’s beat red now. “You can say no, of course. It’s just an idea.”

It’s not like she doesn’t trust him. And it’s not like they’re going to spoon or something.

“Yeah. That sounds good.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So. Uh. Yeah. Not sure about some details with the timeline here, I know that Mundungus stole the locket and sold it to Umbridge, but I’m not sure about when he sold it. Everything is pushed up a couple of months or so, so I’m saying that when Kreacher stalked him down, he still had it on him. Mostly I don’t want to write a different version of the whole ministry thing. Really, don’t expect pretty much any of the 7th book in here. I’m going to go more, idk, philosophical? Spiritual? What if the end of this fic is just Harry using various yoga poses and crystals to clear out that bit of Voldemort? (It’s not. That’s a joke. 
> 
> Or is it? 
> 
> It is.)


	11. Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?

They’re spooning.

He freezes as the last vestige of sleep leaves him all at once. His arm is wrapped around her stomach, his thighs pressed against her butt. In front of him is a forest of hair, her shoulders pushed a little away from him. She has stuck one of her chilly feet in between his shins.

He’s never been much for touching. People seem to have a language with it that he only knows a few rudimentary phrases in while everyone else is fluent. He isn’t much bothered by receiving or giving gentle cuffs on the shoulder. He can do high fives without thought. He doesn’t curl in anymore when someone slings their arms over his shoulders, but he’s not quite confident enough to do it himself.

He’s always been a bit jealous of the Weasleys for that. If he’s a stumbling, unconfident learner, then they aren’t just fluent, they’re Shakespeares, they’re Keats, Dickensons, Miltons. He once witnessed Ron and George get into, have, and then resolve an argument almost entirely through different shoves, tweaks, shakes, and clapping on the shoulders. There was also some grunting. Still. He was awfully impressed by it, though by Hermione’s expression it seemed she thought that they were more akin to apes than Keats.

Point being, he’s only hugged Hermione enough times to count on two hands in six years of knowing her, and now he’s wrapped around her like a koala on its mother.

Most baffling about this though, even though he feels an incredible amount of uncertainty, a strange and old kind of fear, something like looking over a ledge of a cliff with a fear of heights, he doesn’t really want to move.

She did say that she wouldn’t shove him away.

He knows that this isn’t what she had meant and that it’s not entirely fair. But still, he doesn’t want to move. He wants to see.

He knows when she wakes up because she inhales deeper, shifts against him just a little, then also freezes.

He’s perfectly still, holding his breath, so she must know he’s awake. There’s a beat and then another, of silence and stillness, Harry’s heart beating faster all the while.

Then she rolls in place, not moving her foot into a different place, not moving his arm, just rotating underneath it.

She’s very close, her hair wilder than he’s used to seeing it, her breath probably a lot like his. She looks younger, somehow, like this. He can see better all the soft light freckles dotting the bridge of her nose.

This close, without his glasses in the way at all, he can see her eyes more clearly. He’s always considered them brown and thought no further about it, but now he can see that they are ringed with a deep black, and then, like a star burst, or sharp flower petals, there are lines of softer browns, more golden, and then next to them, lines of yellow that deepen into a forestry kind of green by her pupil. From further away they look like a simple dark sort of brown, but up close, they’re quite complex.

“What if we think about how to remove the Horcrux in your scar to join the one in the locket, and then we can destroy it from there? It seemed like they were attracted to each other. The soul yearns to be whole, after all.”

She’s looking curiously at him like he’s seen a hundred times. The tone of her voice, her comfort level, everything is what he’s used to, but her hands are under her cheek, and her foot is warmer between his legs, his arm is resting in the dip between her hip and her waist.

He hadn’t known he wanted this so much, too much. While Hermione seems comfortable, he’s body, bracing for rejection and receiving none, receiving the opposite, is left in a strange amount of energy, some sort of alert that makes his fingers twitch.

Though he feared her moving away, he finds himself doing so now, slowly moving up and up, so that he’s sitting with his back against the headboard. Hermione sits up in the middle of the bed, still unruffled looking, still looking at him with that question in her eyes.

_What had she even asked? Oh, right-_ “Yeah, that could make sense. Less focus on destroying, more focus on moving. Have we seen any books that go over that at all? What if a dark wizard doesn’t like the vessel they’ve chosen, can they you, know, do over?”

She sighs, pats her hair. “No. Definitely not. Everything I read made quite the point of it, actually.”

His heart is still beating fast, but at least his hands have stilled. “So I guess then, what’s tethering the soul to the object to begin with?”

She squirms and frowns a little. “That’s the question, isn't it? One which I know little about, but I very seriously have to pee.”

Harry laughs as she stands and takes fasts quick steps over to the toilet. “I’ll get breakfast started.”

Kreacher is in the kitchen, looking uncertain. “Would Master, and- and the other one, like some breakfast?”

He grins at him, then lets the grin fall, still not clear on how the weathered house elf makes him feel. “Um, yeah. Just some toast and eggs, if that’s alright. And tea, of course.”

Kreacher hums his agreement and as he shuffles about the kitchen he mutters to himself, but it seems to be less hateful in tone, and instead more absent sort of half thoughts. He sits down and leans back, and the mutters make for a peaceful sort of background noise until Hermione arrives.

She’s no longer wearing her large t-shirt and pair of jogging shorts from last night. Instead she’s in jeans a light pink jumper. “Oh, thank you for making breakfast Kreacher!” She pulls out a chair and sits as he pauses in his frying of an egg, stills, then, almost unnoticeable, nods his head to her greeting.

Hermione beams at the elder elf like he just declared that all muggleborns are, of course, just the same as purebloods and that his old masters were wrong while throwing a fistful of confetti in the air.

She’s still smiling when she turns to look at Harry, though the shine dims as she starts talking. “Horcruxes act as the new body for the part of the soul. It’s unnatural to the part of the soul as well as the object. So the object has to be fortified to contain the soul, and the soul has to inhabit every part of the object, meaning that just damaging the object is not enough to kill the bit of soul in it, like how if you cut off a person’s arm, that doesn’t remove their soul or part of their soul. You would have to damage the person beyond repair, beyond any kind of function. Same with a horcrux, it would have to be damaged beyond repair as well.”

Harry rests his chin on his hands, frowning at the plate of food Kreacher has placed in front of him. He does give him a small smile and a thank you, and Kreacher bows and disappears from the room. He picks up a piece of toast and sort of flaps it around. “I mean, we knew all that, of course. It’s not exactly the most encouraging thing.”

“But we saw last night that it’s not you, it’s your scar.”

Harry sighs. “So, what? I just need to cut the horcrux off? Shall I grab the scalpel and you can grab a towel? Let’s go for it.”

She rolls her eyes at him so hard that he feels like a first year mispronouncing a spell in front of her again. He resists the urge to chuck the piece of toast in his hand at her. He takes a bite instead.

“Are you your scar?”

_Sometimes it seems like it._

But that’s a bitter thought, and he knows on some level he most definitely isn’t.

“I feel like that really matters. I just don’t know how to act out on that. I don’t think trying to cut it off would work. I think it was made by ancient magic, so it probably needs to heal that way too.”

He scoops up a bite of egg with the corner of his toast and stares at the wall.

_I am not a horcrux, I am just holding one. Like I have the locket sown into my chest, but not with a needle and thread, but with magic. But that’s not entirely true, is it? I can see him and feel him sometimes. He’s not entirely separate. But he’s not entirely connected either. I don’t feel like Nagini. When he’s in Nagini, he is her, the body is his. But he can’t even possess me. Am I a weird horcrux hybrid. Maybe what I am is weird because he didn’t do it intentionally? Maybe that’s why he doesn’t know I am one, even after he tried to possess me, even though we have this connection._

“I need to sever it from me before it can be removed. Get rid of the connection to my own soul, whatever it is.”

Hermione sips her tea. “Do you think it is a true connection? That it’s really your souls in contact? After all, Ron and I were affected by the locket too.”

“I have a feeling, Hermione, that no matter how long you held the locket, how much it affects you, that you would never be able to see into Voldemort’s mind with it.”

She frowns down at her tea, twirls it in her mug. She looks into the middle distance. “How much are we our bodies, and how much are we not?”

Harry feels a grin form, a small one. “This should be easy. Tackling the small questions, the two of us, eh?”

Hermione grins weakly back. It saddens him to see it. An idea floats to the surface from nowhere. “Would you like to go out with me?”

Her head snaps over to him, her eyes wide.

He realises what he just said all at once. “Oh. Oh. I meant. See, what I meant was do you want to go outside with me today? In some sort of disguise? I have a feeling that it will be pretty hard to go out at all here in the near future and I just thought it might be nice to go do something, you know? While we can.”

Slowly Hermione’s shoulders lower, her eyes drifting narrower and narrower, until she’s clearly thinking. The silence goes on and Harry finishes the last of his toast.

“Disguised?”

Harry nods, trying not to grin too soon.

“And being very, very careful?”

He nods again, though this time the corner of his mouth does curl up.

“Okay.”

“Okay?” He had expected more worried ranting, to be honest.

“Yeah.” She’s nodding too, letting out a long breath.

He goes and cleans himself up for the day and after he’s done, Hermione stares at him with her wand tapping against her lips, an artist before a canvas.

He can feel hair shrinking, his face pulling, can see his clothes morphing, so that when he looks in the mirror he sees a middle aged businessman, looking like his fresh off to a meeting, the only things slightly out of place is the hair at the back of his head and his scar, still visible, always visible.

Hermione notices, transfigures a hat without saying anything to him, which Harry places carefully onto his head.

It’s kind of nice, being someone else.

Hermione spends some time on herself, shrinking her hair up, changing the colour, aging her own face, making her eyes blue.

She looks a little like her mum.

“Ugh. I look like my mum.” She scowls briefly into the mirror.

“Your mum’s not bad looking.” He says it absently, not really thinking, and then stills. What is it with him today?

“I, uh, I, I just mean that you look like your mum, mostly, and you’re not bad looking so, you know, neither is she.”

Hermione opens her mouth, looks like she’s going to say something that will make him splutter; Ron’s influence over the last six clearer than ever before.

But instead, being a decent sort of person, she just snorts and shakes her head. “Let’s go.”

It feels like the sun is coming ever closer to the earth, the way that they start hot and then get hotter as they walk, the midday humid and bright, not one cloud in the sky. The streets are crowded with people who, like them, were initially excited to go out on what seemed like a nice day, only to walk half a street and then regret it. But there was something fun in the collective suffering and everybody went about anyway, whinging and moaning, but in a good humour too.

They turned the corner and came upon a shopping street, the narrow road filled to the brim with stalls selling everything from apples to purses. Every inch of walking space was filled with swarming masses. It looked perfectly summer-y, somehow very lovely and horrendous all at once.

“I need an ice cream.” Hermione nods her head to the side, a tiny shop full to the brim with people.

Harry nods and they both move forward, shoulders straight, jaws square. This was going to be unpleasant.

“Ow, you stepped on my foot-”

“Mummy! Mummy! I want chocolate, Mummy, I want-”

“Please form an orderly-”

“Young man, young man, did you hear me? I’d like vanilla!”

“Yes Ma’am, Yes. Please move this way to-”

“And what would you like?”

“Do you have waffle cones?”

“Yes, they’re - They’re, right here.”

“Oh. Do you all have caramel swirled vanilla?”

“Yes, Ma’am, it is also right here.”

“Ah. What sizes do you all -”

“I would like six small cones and two large, with sprinkles-”

Somehow they get to the counter, the person there well past shell-shocked, something almost serene about them in the chaos.

“And what will you and your wife have?”

Hermione’s tucked under his arm, Harry having pulled her forward in order to help her avoid the wild gesturing of the man behind them.

“Oh. Uh. She’s not-”

“Two chocolate cones please.”

“Yes, right up.” And with an elegant and brutal efficiency, they were given their cones right away. Hermione pulled out some crumpled bills from her pocket, and they were on their way.

“Excuse us-”

“Ouch, move out of the way-”

“Thank you.”

“Charlie, you can’t just stand in the doorway-”

“Mummy, mummy, I want a big cone, mummy-”

And they were out on the street, a tiny table with metal chairs opening up just as they got out. Hermione flopped down with the gracelessness of the weary.

Harry starts in on his cone. Somehow it tastes even better, out here in the blazing sun, sitting in chairs that make them like a rock in a stream of people. “Aren’t we British?”

Hermione raises an eyebrow. “Last I checked.”

“Aren’t the British supposed to be good at queueing?

She snorts, giggles as she dabs a serviette to her nose where her laughter caused her to get a spot of ice cream on it.

He’s glad that she didn’t change her appearance too much, that she mostly made herself look older. It’s nice for a moment, the sun hot on his neck, the ice cream cold and sweet in his mouth, to think that he is someone else, older, more assured. Maybe he’s in a stable job after some adventures in his youth, and now he’s looking for a family. He got set up by a coworker with the nice office director across from him. This is their third date, and he’s cautiously optimistic.

Or maybe, they’re actually a couple that got married and had children young, and now that the youngest is mostly grown, already in sixth form, they find themselves with the time and money they didn’t have in their youth and are going on some dates.

Or maybe it can just be them in twenty or thirty years time. The scar is faded, Hermione is running the world, and everything is over. It's just them, at peace, having a date. 

That pauses him. He stares at the half eaten ice cream in front of him, watching as a bit that’s melted drips down the cone slowly.

_Is this a date? It kind of seems like - No. No, you daft idiot. This isn’t a date. The heats got into your head. This is an aren’t-you-overwhelmed-let’s-do-something-that-isn’t-about-the-bit-of-an-evil-man’s-soul-in-your-head outing._

“Har-, uh, you okay?” Hermione’s expression is all her own, the downturn of her eyes, compassion and worry. And suddenly he’s glad that it’s just her across from him and not an office director or a wife grown older. That they aren't actually old yet. 

“Yeah. Hot out, isn’t it?”

She stares balefully. They and everyone around them has said that at least three times in the last ten minutes.

He smirks at her. “Well, isn’t it, Herm-hmm? C’mon. You have to say that it’s quite warm, right? Right? Wouldn’t you say that it’s very nearly sweltering?”

Hermione puts a bit of chocolate ice cream on her finger, leans forward, and flicks him on the nose.

“Oi!” Harry jumps, reaches for serviette, dabs at his face. “I’m going to be vaguely sticky all day.”

She laughs, getting up and stretching. Harry follows suit. Their seats are immediately taken by a woman with two small children who looks like a dementor's half got her.

They walk slowly down the street, looking at whatever, bumping shoulders when something interesting happens, pointing.

They laugh their way through the streets of London, a middle-aged couple on a date.

They sit on a bench by the canal under a bridge. In the shade the day is more tolerable, the sun now at a lower angle. They eat some sandwiches, throwing some crusts to the ducks.

People walk past, chatting about nothing. A breeze picks up and Hermione makes a pleased little humming sound. He wishes this was his real life so badly it squeezes and twists his stomach, so that he needs to lean forward, his elbows on his knees.

He feels Hermione’s hand on his back, a question.

He turns to look at her. “I wish that Voldemort would just disappear. Out of my head, out of the locket, out of everything, out of the world in general.”

She frowns at him, clutches at his shirt at the name.

They stare at each other. It seems quieter all of a sudden. The muggles walking the path by the canal move off of it, going onto different side streets. It wouldn’t be noticeable if it wasn’t for how it was happening, just a little too fast, as though a time lapse sped up.

They’re alone now.

Hermione grips the back of his shirt tighter.

They’re alone except for two men walking down the path, shoulder to shoulder.

They’re dressed like workmen, very normal looking, except for two things.

The first is the smirks that colour their faces. The second are the wands clutched in their fists.


	12. And sometime voices, That, if I then had wak’d after long sleep, Will make me sleep again

He stands, pulls out his wand, Hermione just a half step behind him.

The other wizards send out stunners, which makes Harry more nervous in some way than other curses would have.

What would they do with them, after they’re unconscious?

He knows ultimately what his destiny would be, if they’re caught. Maybe not right away, but eventually. He shoots off a blasting curse, which gets one of them in the shoulder, and he spins away for a second, a twisted imitation of a pirouette. Hermione takes him down with a stunner as he’s still rotating. He knows how it would end after whatever show Voldemort puts on. But Hermione, he’s not sure what they’d do to her.

That terrifies him.

The other wizard puts out a shield, but something of Harry’s desperation must of been in that spell, or maybe the man just wasn’t very good at them, because the shield doesn’t appear to work as well as it should, and the man sags, shakes his head, fighting against the half felt stunner. Harry disarms him, Hermione hits him with another stunner.

She runs out from behind him, goes to the two wizards and Obliviate them, her voice sharp, impatient. There’s movement in the corner of his eye. There, from the other side, a small distance down the canal, are two more raising their wands. Harry grabs onto Hermione, pulls her up from the kneeling position she’s in, her eyes widening at the sight of the other two.

She spins just as one of the others shoots off a jagged and bright red spell.

They are squeezed, but even in the supreme discomfort of disapparition Harry can feel that something is wrong on his side.

They are on the front step. Harry feels like something has taken a massive claw and run in across his ribs. He falls forward against Hermione, who opens the door, trying to balance him as he tilts, she’s yelling for Kreacher. And then he knows nothing.

He recalls being here before, something similar. He doesn’t really know where this is. There’s a taste of blood in his mouth, something to the fuzziness of his brain, something careful, it doesn’t want him to push. He doesn’t. He’s already familiar with this place, this state of being. He knows better.

His mind gets fuzzier and fuzzier until things fall into sharper relief. He’s dreaming.

Dreams never make sense, but this one is more aggressively so. It’s just flashes of things. Dudley gaping at him after he turns the teacher’s wig blue. Snapping awake during fourth year, in Trelawney's classroom, in pain. When he wakes up screaming, the night he’s the snake, the night Voldemort is the snake and he’s Voldemort, gliding and gliding, their three souls together, breaking into a man’s flesh with fangs.

People thought he was crazy his fifth year. It’s stupid, but it hurt his feelings, all the staring. He sees their heads turn away, the smirks forming as they do, they lean forward to whoever they’re walking with, to talk about how he’s mental.

And isn’t he? Isn’t that what this is? He has a bit of Voldemort’s soul floating about in his head. Is this not insanity? Does that not make him insane? And just because it’s real, does that change the fact he has voices in his head, that he suffers, that he can’t tell real from fake?

Eventually the staring changes shape, less pointed little needles with their eyes; they get softer, beams of light instead. He’s not crazy, he’s interesting. He’s taller now. He’s the captain. He’s not a liar.

The funny part, to him, is that he’s just as crazy as ever. No. It’s much worse. Because it’s not Voldemort sitting in his head, an unwelcome intruder, a burdensome connection. It’s their souls three, gliding and gliding together. He doesn’t know how to get rid of him and keep himself.

Doesn’t that mean he’s crazy? Is that not insanity?

Does it matter that he doesn’t tell lies?

He’s awake, all at once. The room is bright, the light electric around the edges. He can hear Kreacher’s wheezing, can smell Hermione close, feels the fabric of the sheets, every fiber, every thread underneath him.

And then, a great flame is blowing and blowing on his side, it burns. He rolls to get away from it, but it follows, stays on his skin. It’s confusing because it feels like it’s almost coming from there, like there is a fire blowing and blowing, but it’s coming from his side, spreading and crisping the skin there.

Her hands are on his shoulders. He wants to roll away from the fire more, but knows it will follow. Some sound tears through his vocal cords, but he doesn’t know what the sound is, can’t seem to hear it.

Instead he hears Hermione’s voice, her voice is saying something in a shaky, uncertain sort of way that makes him sad. He hates it when she cries. But she’s not crying. Not really. Instead sounds are forming words, and though there are great burning lashes of pain spurting and spurting from his side, there is enough room in his brain for them to come together.

“Please Harry, Please, take this potion, stop shoving my hand away. Look at me - look at me now. Pl-Please take this potion, it will help, please.”

He can’t seem to think. The light is electric, sharp before it falls to shadow. There’s blood in his mouth. He’s mad, insane, something about souls. Hermione doesn’t look older anymore and that makes him sad, because that means it’s not the future.

Her eyes are dark, she’s saying something again. He can still see the little lines of yellow. That’s good. He’s happy he knows.

It feels as though there is a demon made of fire trying to crawl out of his side. He wants to roll away from it, but he knows he can’t. Something about souls.

“Please.” She pushes a glass to his mouth and he drinks it, even though he doesn’t know why. Maybe because of how he knows the lines deepen to a forest green, right by the pupil.

Then there’s nothing.

* * *

It’s a horror film. There’s blood on her hands, on the sheets, the floor, the wall. Kreacher is crying quietly. But it doesn’t matter, because the wound is knitting closed, finally, finally. She sits on the edge of the bed, conjuring her patronus. “Ron. The name is Taboo. Don’t come here, be extra cautious.”

She sits still and in the quiet, after the gentle glow of the patronus fades, a wave of terror hits her. Her hands shake. She leans forward, curls her arms around her stomach.

“Mud- Muggleborn. Miss. You must clean your hands. You saved Master’s life. That’s good. That’s enough.” Kreacher is pulling her hands, helping her stand, walks her to the bathroom. “While you clean you. I’ll clean here.”

She nods, feels relieved and then not, and then relieved again when he closes the door and she can sit in silence. She peels off her clothes, notes absently, without any particular feeling, that there doesn’t appear to be blood on her shoes, somehow.

She steps into the shower, retrofitted by someone in the order, she can’t remember who, but remembers distinctly hearing some grumpy voice muttering about how they aren’t all lordlings who have time for baths.

The bathtub is white, the tiles around it, on the wall, in a pattern on the floor, are black. As the blood washes away from her arms, from her hair, it creates a red sort of swirl. Hermione never considered herself very artistic, was never confident with it, but she thinks there’s something striking in the colors, the black, the red, the white.

Or maybe she’s just avoiding her thoughts.

She’s never felt more backed into a corner. She’s clung to the idea that everything would be okay if they can just get the soul out of his head, somehow. It’s become a mantra with her, a solemn plea.

But they still want him dead. They won’t ever not want him dead. And if they are able to remove the soul from Harry, they will still have a whole war to fight.

She crutches down, so that water hits her neck, so that it slides through her hair and hangs over her face, so that she can’t breath too well, half sucking in water.

_Maybe we could go back to France. This is all too much. Isn’t it enough we are wandering blind through this ancient soul magic? Isn’t it enough that he has this in him, that he’s being hunted?_

_Ah, but, don’t you remember? He was plain with you from the start. He considers it his responsibility to defeat Voldemort. The priority is his defeat._

_Maybe I could kidnap him again-_

_You know that won’t work again. That’s not a solution. It never really was. Besides. What about you? Would leave this world to crumple into darkness, to crumple away under Voldemort?_

_No. No. I want to help. I need to help the other muggleborns. But for Harry, I - This is too much._

_Oh poor you. You already know. That’s why it was so scary when you figured it out. You cannot save Harry and abandon the wizarding world. They are connected. He won’t let it go. He wouldn’t be him if he did. Neither can die if they both should survive._

She presses her hands to her eyes. She’s glad she sent Ron the patronus already. She doesn’t feel like she could ever make one ever again, how she feels right now.

She stands, turns off the water. There is a towel and a night shirt on the stand next to the sink.

It’s night now. Harry lays in the dim light of only one lit lamp. No one would ever have guessed what had happened today to look around. The sheets are stark white, there is no blood splattered anywhere.

She still feels, despite everything, guilty about enjoying the labors of a house elf.

Exhausted, she slides under the sheets next to him. It makes her feel better than she thought she could to hear and see the steady rise and fall of his chest. His side is completely closed now, though the skin is a little pink and irritated and raised. She wonders if it will scar.

_Ah, well, what’s another one._

Outside of this, he looks restful. Lately, on the rare occasion when she does see him sleeping, he still looks tense. Like his contemplating something unpleasant in his sleep, some sort of math problem that won’t be solved.

But now, his side closed and mostly healed, his face smooth, the soft sound of his even breaths lull her into sleep.

* * *

They’re spooning.

It no longer feels like a fire monster is trying to crawl out of his side. Instead it’s like a sunburn, like that time he didn’t notice a bit of his shirt riding up his back when he was gardening, when he was ten, until he stood straight and felt the burn prickle in a line across his back. It was unpleasant, but perfectly manageable.

And maybe it hurts to breath, just a little, but only sometimes, and only if he breaths deep.

He had fallen asleep with only his legs covered. And though it is in the heat of summer, there is always a continual draft, somehow, in Grimmauld. In the night he must have sought warmth and found it there, lying next to Hermione. 

There’s an owl, out on the branch of the tree he can see through the window, barely more than an outline in the dim gray blue of the early light. It blinks at him in an unhurried sort of way, seems content to just bob gently on the branch in the morning breeze.

He moves his arm away from her waist but doesn’t pull back more. There’s a comfort to her being there, something in the steady heat of her, that’s nice. More than nice. Somehow it’s better than being in a hot shower, even one after a Quidditch practise in the freezing rain.

He touches his side, moving up a little to look down at it.

It hurts more now that he’s fully awake, now that he’s looking at it. Putting pressure on his side at all sends a jolt through him that he has to actively suppress a hiss of pain from. But still, not so bad. He pokes and prods for a while, feels the dimensions of the hurt still there.

He’ll live.

He lays all the way back down, stares at the back of Hermione’s head. She put her hair up in a bun, apparently, last night. The hair hangs down, so that even contained, it brushes against her neck, the pillow, Harry’s face.

He's feeling a little surreal in the slowly gathering light, the owl blinking at him in the distance, his side in a muffled kind of pain and maybe because of this a little bolder. He moves Hermione’s hair up, gently, just a little, so that he can duck his head, place his forehead against her neck.

It feels very exposed, somehow. He feels less weird about them spooning while he’s wearing boxers and she only has a nightshirt. He felt less weird than that one time she kissed his cheek, than any of their hugs, even the last time they woke up together. There’s something very intimate, his head there, though he can’t express why, even in his own thoughts.

He closes his eyes, his mind trying to travel worn paths. They need to figure out how to get this horcrux out and they need to do it soon. To say that this is the calm before the storm is wrong, it’s like more like the rain has started to fall in earnest, and his already getting wet, his hair dripping into his eyes, the wind picking up. They’re in the storm. It seems like the rest of the world hasn’t quite seen it yet, didn’t want to read the weather report, figure an umbrella will be enough. But he's already standing in it. 

  
_I really need to work this out, so we can focus. So that Hermione can focus. We don’t have much time._

And despite the familiar tinge of anxiety that this line of thinking gives him, that would usually keep him awake, he drifts off, thoughts coming apart like a stack of papers dropped at the top of a staircase.

* * *

The feel of Harry’s even, steady breaths going down her back in small puffs makes her shiver, then still.

_Maybe this isn’t healthy._

_It sure feels healthy._

_But we aren’t even dating._

_Right, now's the time to be thinking about dating._

_But, this doesn’t seem a very friend sort of thing to do, does it?_

_Ugh. Could you not over think and ruin something nice for once?_

She opens her eyes, blinking against the soft light of the morning. Another breath travels along her spine, and there are a lot of feelings all mixing together, giving her a flush along her chest and across her checks, and before she can think much further, she shifts up and away from him, so that she’s sitting back on her elbows, peering down at him.

His face is still peaceful looking. The mark on his side is less red and irritated.

There’s a movement in the corner of her eye and she sees an owl looking bored on the branch outside the window.

Sighing, she swings her feet outside of the bed, and just as she’s standing, moving a half step away, her hand is grabbed.

She looks down at Harry’s outstretched arm, follows it up to his startled face. “Oh. Um.”

“There’s an owl.”

He nods, dropping her hand and rolling onto his back. She can see him suppressing a grimace.

She opens the window and the owl gives a soft hoot, not waiting at all after she unties the letter before flying off. She rolls it out.

_Hermione,_

_Seriously, you can’t just send something like that, I’m completely freaking out. How do you know the taboo’s up? Are you two okay? I thought about just coming over anyway, but didn’t want to get hexed in the face the moment I came through. Can we fire call? I also have some news. I’ll try you at ten, then again at eleven, so don’t hex my face._

_Ron_

Hermione glances at the clock on the wall. It’s ten until ten.

“Ron’s fire calling in ten minutes.”

Harry nods, moves to sit up, his face set in a grimace. Hermione goes over to the bedside table, uncorks a vial with a purple sludgy liquid in it he’s all too familiar with.

“This is just a general pain potion. I had to use the Dittany to get it to close at all.”

Harry nods, slugs it down in one shot. He already looks better. They pull on their clothes, sit in the living room.

“Thank you, by the way.” He’s voice is rough, probably from all the screaming. “For, you know, saving my life. Again. Cheers. I think I was awake at some point. I must have been a sight.”

She knows that the image of him, bleeding and bleeding, arching his back and screaming in agony, will live forever in some part of her mind. “It wasn’t the best evening we’ve ever had, of course, but I’m just glad the dittany worked.”

He nods, stares down towards the floor.

They both start when the fire sparks green. But it’s just Ron’s head, grimacing as though preparing for a blow. Hermione snorts. Ron cracks one eye open, glances at them, then grins. “Oh good, you got my note. Look. I don’t have a lot of time to talk, Mum's gone off to find some sort of fabric or maybe a plant, it’s not clear. I just wanted to make sure you’re alright, which I can see, and also -” He clears his throat, looking uncomfortable. “Also, I might have told the Minister for Magic to bugger off and then denied to take anything from Dumbledore’s will. So. There’s that.”


	13. In delay there lies no plenty, Then come and kiss me, sweet and twenty, Youth's a stuff will not endure.

Hermione remembers seeing Dumbledore for the first time very clearly. The whole memory is easily accessible to her, as though it’s a series of pictures always in her pocket and she can slip them out to look at whenever she fancies; seeing McGonagall, tall and imposing, waiting in terrified anticipation to be sorted, the sky so three dimensional in the ceiling, prettier than the true sky she could see from her suburban bedroom window. And there, in the distance, sitting, was a wizard that went beyond and above every hope she had. All those fairy tales, all those stories told over and over again with the same bones, only different skin, that spoke of wise old men who led people to their destinies. Wise old men who impart the knowledge she so desperately wants.

Everything about his eccentric appearance satisfied that need for adventure, but everything about his calm face, his long white beard, and most importantly, the twinkling of his blue eyes assured her that this was everything she hoped it would be.

It is always painful when hope dies, and worse still when the last vestige of childhood you didn’t even know you were clinging on to crumples beneath you, as it did that day that Dumbledore knelt down next to her in that hallway. But somehow, Ron’s announcement cements all of that pain into her in a way she hadn’t expected. It doesn't make sense, because it's all stuff she already knows. Dumbledore’s will. He’s really died. He’s really dead and he left them things, things to impart knowledge to her, to send her on her way to her destiny, to send all of them probably.

“Good.” Hermione’s voice is a harsh whisper, almost lost under Harry’s loud voice.

“You did what?”

And though Hermione’s voice was the quieter one, both boy’s heads turned to look at her in surprise.

“Good?” They both say the same word, but Ron’s voice is shocked, Harry’s a little angry.

She makes eye contact with Harry, who clenches his jaw and looks back to the fire.

“How could you, Ron?”

Ron grimaces. “It’s complicated, hard to explain. He was so rude. He just bursts into our sitting room without an invitation, demands to speak to me alone, starts interrogating me about where you are, then kind of dangles Dumbledore’s will like a carrot to get me to tell him. So I told him to bugger off and he, well, buggered off.”

He pauses, his mouth hanging open just a little, his eyes in a bit of a squint. “Yeah, no. I guess it wasn’t hard to explain. That was about it, really.”

Harry’s face is like a strobe light, working through emotions in flashes.

Hermione clears her throat. “Good. Thank you, Ron.”

He looks at her with a frown. “I’m going to be honest here and say I’m surprised. I thought for sure you’d be furious with me. I mean, honestly, I think I probably should have tried harder to hear what was in the will. I really don’t think you two should go strolling around there, making inquiries. Frankly, Scrimgeour seems a little unhinged.”

Hermione shrugs, opens her mouth to speak, but is interrupted by Harry’s sigh.

“Yeah, last time I saw him, he slapped me right across the face.”

She knows what he just said, the words were all English, in the right order, but they don’t make any sense.

“What?!” Ron’s voice echos her’s by just a second.

Harry’s staring pensively down at his hands. “It’s not important. He - I think he wants my help, but I - Look. That’s not what’s important. I understand that he was blackmailing you, Ron. What you said makes sense, I see why you did that, but still. He could have left us something important-”

“No.” Her voice is quiet again, but still holds something that makes them both look at her. “He won’t have left us anything we need.”

Harry scoffs. “What makes you say that?”

“Because we know what his plan was. Anything he left would have only helped with that.”

Harry’s hands clench in front of him. “I know that you aren’t too fond of Dumbledore anymore. I-I’m not - He’s not exactly my favourite anymore either. But like I said a million times, Dumbledore’s main goal was to defeat Vol-You-Know-Who. And so is mine.”

“He wanted you to die.”

Harry’s frown is so tight his mouth looks like a slash across his face.

Ron glances between them, apprehensive. “Right. I’ll try to firecall again soon. Mum’s already walked in, she’ll try to talk to you if I don’t go. Bye.”

He pops away, but Hermione’s words are still lingering in the room.

“I’m aware of what his plan was. Still-”

“I’m tired of him, Harry. I thought- He- He- was. I don’t know. He was important to you on a different level than he was to all of us, but he was still important to all of us. And now that I know about him, I feel so disappointed, so disappointed in him it makes me sick.” She feels tears burn up through her throat, swallows them, swallows again, blinking rapidly under Harry’s pained gaze. “Since we aren’t following his plan anymore, it seems simpler, easier, to just leave all of his plans behind. I have a feeling that if we did get what he left us, it would only cause us more aggravation and confusion.”

Harry’s face, his posture, is all argument, the tensity of his jaw, the squareness of his shoulders, but then it leaves him all at once and everything sort of curls inward, his chin, his shoulders, his back. “That’s pretty stubborn of you.”

She reaches over, touches his hair briefly. “Yes. I suppose it is.”

He winces as he stands, but just a little. “C’mon. Let’s have some breakfast.”

They walk in and the table is already set; toast, eggs, sausage all already out. Harry pauses in the doorway. “I’m worried I’ll get used to this.”

Hermione hums in agreement, that familiar sting of guilt accompanying her as she bites into her toast.

They eat in silence for a while, Harry sitting stiffly in his chair, trying not to move his side. “I don’t think Dumbledore wanted me to die.”

Hermione pauses, her glass of orange juice halfway to her mouth. She puts it down. “No. I suppose he didn’t. He just didn’t want you to not die enough.”

Harry nods, like this is a minor distinction rather than the whole world. His face is strange, strained but loose at the same time, easy but desperate. In a way, she realises that she’s been so worried about him that she doesn’t really know how he’s doing. She opens her mouth to ask, but he clears his throat a little. 

“Have you ever regretted becoming my friend?” It’s an honest question, the tone just right, no hints of anger, no suggestion of fear, just curiosity. He wants the truth, this is important.

She feels a bit like she did the Defense Against the Dark Arts exam in third year, put on the spot. She knows this matters, she has to do well, but knowing that is putting a weight on her, is making her skittish. She doesn’t know what face she’s making, she’s seeing Harry’s frown deepen, sees his eyes drift away from hers towards the floor, so she knows it can’t be good.

“Hermione...You don’t-”

“Yes.” Her voice is high pitched, squeaky almost. She coughs a little, to clear her throat, but her voice still seems off. His eyes snap back up to hers.

“I’ve regretted it sometimes. Just sometimes. But not in the times that you think. Not about what you think. And any regret I’ve felt has to do with me, not you. It’s- Any of those feelings are few and far between-”

“Was it when you had to send your parents away?” His eyes are wide, he’s watching her with a fascination that she thinks might be born out of insecurity.

She’s suddenly angry. He always carries things that don’t need to be carried, always takes on things that aren’t his to take. It’s a strange thing, both simultaneously the most selfless thing she’s ever seen and somehow also arrogant.

“Not everything is about you.” Her voice is mean, meaner than she feels. She’s almost as taken aback as Harry looks. He blinks at her, looks a little pale. He opens his mouth, but her words come out all at once, like her bag that tore at the seam, ink bottles flying this way, books tumbling that way. “I’m a muggleborn. Soon the flimsy wall that blocks You-Know-Who from taking complete control of the ministry will be gone. I’m in danger all by myself and so is my family. Have you forgotten what this is all about? No. Any regret in becoming friends with you has to do with how hard I find it to be brave.

“I’m a bookworm, a know-it-all, I used to keep my head down. In primary, when other students were being bullied I didn’t stop to help them because no one stopped to help me. Does that sound very Gryffindor to you? I regret becoming friends with you in the same way that I regret becoming a Gryffindor in general. I-If I had gone into Ravenclaw like the hat had wanted me to, I could have stuck to my books. I could have made easy choices, I could have left a legacy of very good essays, and that would have been it. But Harry that regret is the same regret that a child feels growing older. I would have been stunted, incomplete, and stagnant, if I hadn’t met you.”

She feels overwhelmed, embarrassed, like she thought she had a bra on under her shirt only to find that when she lifted it up that she didn't. Exposed. Harry’s staring at her with wide eyes, and now the tables are turned, and he’s left floundering. But she’s never been as brave as Harry and stands, taking quick strides out of the kitchen, sliding through the living room as though she’s bending time and space, and before she takes her next breath she’s in the bedroom, closing the door behind her with a click.

She walks over to the wardrobe, opens it, stares around inside like it will throw a task at her, give her something for her mind to chew through that isn’t whatever it was that just happened in there.

But it’s just their clothes all mixed together. She looks down and realizes that she’s wearing one of Harry’s old jumpers, the cuffs frayed. It fits her well, it must be from a time before he got so blasted tall.

_Ron’s tall. I liked that about him._

_Oh yes. All a girl needs-_

_Your crush on Ron last year was shallow-_

_It wasn’t, it was painful, I don’t know-_

_You do know! You do, didn’t you just finish telling him how you’re not very brave? Did you not just, with your whole heart, explain that you wish things were easier sometimes? What was easier than having a crush on Ron, who is not compatible with you, who doesn’t really want you? Wasn’t easier than thinking about the ever present weight that presses and presses upon you when you think about-_

“I need to split the bed.” Hermione turns toward the double wide bed, something manic about her. She knows the spell to duplicate a piece of furniture, though she’s had mixed results in the execution of it. But this room isn’t big enough for two double sized beds. She’s not sure how to split something. She’s envisioning it like mitosis, but that doesn’t make sense. It wouldn't make two smaller ones.

There might be enough room for a double and a single if she moves the wardrobe over. It would be cramped a bit, but it’d be better than all this spooning they’ve been doing lately. She doesn’t know what she was thinking, it was completely inappropriate for two straight friends of the opposite sex to share a bed like that. Imagine how’d she feel if she had a boyfriend and she caught him spooning someone and then he just said, “Oh no, we’re just friends.” Obviously that’s complete bollocks. She turned a blind eye to it, but no more. They should be in the same room for safety reasons, but she was - she doesn’t know what she was thinking.

She levitates the wardrobe over to the corner of the room, then goes about trying to transfigure a pillow into an entire bed.

A couple of hours later she’s tired, she’s made a very thick mattress that has no bed frame but four small feet, somehow, but she feels a lot more like herself. She touches the mattress and it’s so soft that she thinks if she climbs into it will swallow her whole, like quicksand, and she would perish, suffocated among the half transformed cushions.

She’s contemplating the benefits of doing just that when there’s a knock on the door.

She sighs. “Come in.”

Harry peaks his head around the door, sliding more of the way in with raised eyebrows as he spots the botched transfiguration in front of him.

“Um.”

“I’m trying to make another bed from a pillow so that we don’t have to share anymore. Don’t know why I didn’t think of it before, honestly.”

He stands next to her, glancing her over with a frown she can’t quite decipher, then furrows his brow as he turns to look at the monstrosity. “Hermione, I’m pretty sure you can do immobile object to immobile object transfiguration in your sleep. I mean, you honestly looked bored in 5th year when we transfigured those crates into cat trees, and you never look bored in class. Except for in History of Magic, but even then you try your best-”

“I, I’m - I just got stuck. Mental block, you know?”

“Yeah, I’m familiar.”

There’s a long pause as Harry glances between Hermione and the lump that is her transfiguration. Eventually he holds out his hand, and in his palm is the locket. It takes her so much by surprise that she flinches back, but Harry reaches out, steadies her by the shoulder.

“Sorry. Sorry. I just. I think I just realised something. I wanted to share it with you, see what you think.”

She frowns down at the locket. Her mind has been so many places today, she feels a little guilty about how the damn thing hasn’t even crossed her mind. She looks up at him, nodding for him to continue.

“Right, So. He can’t feel love.”

She stares at him, waiting for more, but he’s staring at her like she’s supposed to understand something from that.

“Yes. He also is fond of power, likes snakes, is very afraid of death. Are we listing things we know about him?”

Harry sighs. “Can you imagine a soul without love in it? God. I can’t believe I just said that sentence. But really. Picture it. He can’t feel any love at all, for anything. It’s more than a personality quirk. It’s part of who he is.”

A light turns on. “Oh. Oh. His soul is missing love. That’s part of its shape. You are clearly capable of love-”

“Yes. Um. Yeah. And it had me thinking about what other differences there might be. I’d been focusing for so long, have been rather bent out of shape thinking about all the similarities between us. And there are similarities between us. But also, we’re pretty different.”

“Very different.”

“Hopefully. Anyway. I was able to repel Vol… You-Know-Who from me at the Ministry fifth year by feeling grief, which he isn’t capable of feeling and it was more powerful than him. It made me think that maybe, if I pull at the differences between us, that maybe...-maybe I can, I don’t know. I don’t know. I thought. Maybe. That if I am able to - to locate him, somehow, and then push him with the stronger bits of my own soul, because I haven’t chopped it up into small pieces like a complete prick, then maybe I could, I don’t know, expel him? Maybe?”

Hermione stares up at him, her mind whirring away. He must recognise the expression because he doesn’t seem bothered by the lack of response, instead staring at her patiently.

_What a bunch of wishy-washy-_

_It’s not wishy washy you book oriented snob-_

_Oh Luna would be very comfortable with this, wouldn’t she?_

_Maybe, but Luna isn’t here. Now, think about what different potions or spells might help-_

_Help? Help what? Mediation? He’s going to meditate Voldemort’s soul out of his body? He’s going to hug the bit of his soul with all the love he’s got until it pops out like a greasy roach?_

_Oh, and what was your plan, then? Read manky sudo-science trash about souls until Voldemort’s taken over the world? You knew that you were going to have to wade into uncomfortable waters-_

_Sure. Yes. But I didn’t think that I would have to brush off my old divination textbook-_

_Oh would you get over yourself? Isn’t divination, and particularly even from that old bat, the reason why you both are here?_

_For Merlin’s sake. It’s one thing to know what the magic connecting Harry’s soul and Voldemort’s is imprecise, but another thing entirely to go from a concept to the practical application of removing an evil wizard’s soul with feelings, of all things._

_Instincts are what got you here in the first place, aren’t they? You wouldn’t be arguing with yourself about this so much if the thought didn’t have any merit. Maybe it needs more fleshing out-_

_Fleshing out? Fleshing out? How, exactly, is that supposed to be fleshed out? And also, what if Harry goes poking around, faces Voldemort’s soul, and loses? What happens to him then?_

_Oh, no part of you really believes that a bit of Voldemort's tattered, grotesque, mutilated soul would win out against all that Harry is._

That’s true, and it settles something in her.

“Hermione? Heerrmmiiione?” Harry’s smiling down at her, his hands on her shoulders.

She blinks up at him, then furrows her eyebrows. “Sorry?”

He snorts. “If I’d had known that saying that would have kicked off one of your Thinking Moments, I would have sat down first.”

She rolls her eyes. “I can see what you’re saying. But something tells me that it’ll be a little harder than feeling lots of love in his general direction. And, ugh, I can’t believe I’m saying something like this, but, we know that physically his soul is in your scar, but I don’t think the emotional, soul level of connection will be so easy to narrow down.”

He nods, his hands still on her shoulders. “It will probably be hard to do. Very nebulous, all this, isn’t it? So we’ll plan everything out as best we can, think through things. But Hermione.”

She looks closer at him, the grin he had before morphing now from the soft thing it was to something a little broader, a little deeper, shades falling from amusement to something affectionate, fond, and her heart beats a little faster.

“Sometimes, you just have to jump right in.”

He leans forward, slowly, but with a kind of certainty, and kisses her.


	14. Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind

Aunt Petunia used to watch a lot of daytime soaps. She pretended to Uncle Vernon that she didn’t, but on the occasions where Harry didn’t have school but Vernon had work, he would see her watching them. Dudley would, of course, run off to be annoying elsewhere, but Harry would be in the house, carrying laundry from the kitchen to the livingroom to fold, or dusting, or whatever, and he would see her lean forward, press the tips of her fingers to her mouth, and watch in fascination as some handsome man with too square a jaw would dip some woman whose hair had been teased to a massive size, and kiss her in such a way that it always made Harry pull a face. They always looked like they were trying to swallow each other’s mouths whole. He didn’t understand the appeal of it at all.

When he got older, he understood the appeal more, but some part of him still didn’t really get it. He can see why people kiss, the broader hopes that come along with it, but he didn’t buy all the intense emotion behind it, the Romeo and Juliet kind of kisses, the stupid way some of the older students would stare at each other after some professor or another would tell them to break it up. He figured it was just down to personality. Some people just like the show of passion. This was confirmed to him by his kisses with Cho. They were nice. He wished, at the time, that he could experience more and keep following the train of thought. But he had no desire to dip her backwards, or to stare soppily at her as she walked away.

This was confirmed again witnessing Ron and Lavender. There was no dipping, there were no soppy looks, though Lavender certainly tried, her eyes wide, her lips quivering as she waved goodbye to Ron, who looked awkward, his smile only half, his waving back more embarrassed than wistful. They both did succeed at looking like they were trying to eat each other’s faces though. Harry knew that not all couples were like Ron and Lavender, and that some do genuinely care for each other. But it confirmed quietly that that soap opera style of kissing is for show, more down to personality, and that kissing was neither here nor there at the end of the day.

Her lips are soft and warm under his. They are both very still. He hadn’t done this on impulse. Ever since she left the kitchen after her announcement about how important he is to her, he sat and thought.

He had been a berk to her in third year, about the broomstick. He was angry at her then. It was the part of her personality that always drove him mad; the goody two-shoes, self righteous, know-it-all attitude. She was nervous about the broom, so then all of them had to be, whatever their thoughts and feelings were about it. It’s a part of her that had changed some shape and colour over the years, but at the end of the day, was still there, as much a part of her as it always had been.

It was there in fifth year when she wanted to make sure that Sirius wasn’t home. It was there in sixth year with the Half Blood Prince. It was there when she kidnapped him. Twice.

But as he sat there in the kitchen swirling and swirling his tea, not drinking any of it, he realised that he didn’t drive him mad anymore. In fact, he kind of likes it. Or not likes it, but sees it as part of her, mixed in with the parts of her that always cares, that tries to help house elves, that cried when they thought Buckbeak was killed, the part of her that can’t let anything go.

The part of her that can’t let him go.

He had put his mug down and went into the living room, looking at the oily sheen of the locket. He felt overwhelmed and settled all at once. It felt a bit like standing still and letting an avalanche come over him. At the same time, it felt like he had been looking and looking for his glasses, unable to find them, getting more and more desperate, only to see that they were on the bedside table all along. A dull Oh, followed by a moment of laughing at himself, asking how he missed it. It was right there the whole time.

He fancies Hermione.

He picks up the locket, holds it in his palm. It feels alien and gross. There is nothing kindred between them. Voldemort has never fancied anyone. No doubt he’s a narcissist, but he’s probably not even capable of fancying himself, it’s too positive. And in that moment, he truly pities him. There is nothing good in him anymore, nothing worth living for, as fear of death isn’t good enough. He isn’t even human, less than, just shards, fragments of something that was fundamentally damaged to begin with.

He doesn’t feel like he’s holding a piece of the darkest magic that exists, part of a soul of an immortal wizard, of the monster who killed his parents, that almost killed him. He feels like he’s holding a bit of a steering wheel, or maybe a bit of the brake light, some small bit of a car that smashed against a wall some years ago. It was something, but now it is not. Voldemort had driven it himself into the wall for some reason, somehow thinking it would save him, but all it did was leave crumpled little parts, useless and broken, scattered everywhere.

And as he feels that certainty, the locket throbs and rattles in his hand, and his scar throbs too, different than the sharp burning sensation that he’s used to, but more of a deep ache, one that pulls from his head so that it aches down his body, and it travels outward, a strange pain that tingles at the end of his finger tips, at the tips of his toes.

His whole body shudders and he has a thought. He goes into the bedroom, tells Hermione. Her face sets into a look of intense concentration. He can practically smell the smoke as her mind fires off in who knows what or how many directions. It’s familiar, comforting, all Hermione, and he feels such a shot of affection.

And here they are. Her lips under his, just as warm and soft as they always looked, and they are both still.

And he gets it now. Not that he suddenly wants a squarer jaw, or that Hermione needs her hair any bigger. He doesn’t want to put her into a dip, and he doesn’t want to open his mouth wide to make it seem like he’s sucking her face into some saliva covered black hole. But he gets it now. He doesn’t want to let her go, doesn’t want to stop, understands he would look soppily after her after she leaves, that the kisses wouldn’t be for show, that it would be for them, that much like he’s never felt as warm as he had when the were spooning, he’s never felt quite so - so complete, standing here, his lips on hers, and it all makes sense now.

But she’s awfully still, and though he knows, and it makes sense to him now, he’s aware that perhaps, maybe, Hermione doesn’t know and that none of this is making sense to her.

He pulls back, but doesn’t drop his hands, they’re still lightly on her shoulders. If he wasn’t so nervous, her expression would make him smile.

She looks lost. Like a teacher asked her a question and she just doesn’t know the answer, has never heard of such a thing in her life. She looks like she looked out the window and the sky was green and the grass blue.

She looks like the whole world changed.

She blinks up at him, once, then twice. She shakes her head, bites her lip, blinks more, shakes her head more firmly.

“You’re confused.”

He raises his eyebrows. “Excuse me?”

She looks more certain now, her eyebrows drawn together in a firm line. “This has been a very emotional and uncertain time. We’ve been inappropriately sleeping next to each other. I’m a woman, and you’re a man, and - and the intensity of and intimacy of this situation has kicked up confusing feelings-”

He tries not to feel disappointed and some part of him even succeeds. After all, he saw his glasses on the bedside table, understands what’s been in front of him this whole time. But just because he has doesn’t mean she has.

“Are you sure you’re not projecting? Because I feel very certain of what I just did and what I meant by it.”

She gapes at him, shakes her head some more. “And what did you mean by it?”

It is a strange sensation to have Hermione be the thick one. “That I like you.”

Her mouth drops open, she starts shaking her head again. “No, no, see, the stress of the situation-”

Harry drops his hands, gives her a small smile. “No, I’m pretty clear on this. But that’s okay, we can worry about this a different time, after you’ve had some time to think. Um, I guess, would you like me to take a stab at this? I’m alright at immobile object transfiguration myself and I don’t think I’m having a mental block, so -”

“Yes. Yes you are! You are having a mental something, Harry Potter.” Hermione’s eyes are wide, her gestures broad. Incredulity laces every word she’s saying.

He sighs, lifts his wand, mutters the incantation, and a few moments later stands a single mattress on a medium wood bed frame, complete with side boards and four small posters. He touches the mattress and it is soft, but not too soft. He looks back at Hermione, whose hands are now on her hips. She looks rapidly between Harry and the bed, nods once, then twice, then spins on her heel and marches away, as seems to be her signature move today.

Harry hums to himself, puts his own hands on his hips, winces as he pulls at the tender skin on his side, and then sits down on the edge of his perfectly solid bed, which doesn’t even creak under his weight.

He considers following familiar paths of worry in his mind. _What if she hates me now? What if I messed up? What if one of the last people who’s on my side decides this is too much? What if I’m completely wrong and Hermione isn’t into me at all, and is just a very intense friend who would feel incomplete and stagnant without me? What if I hurt her worse, trying to start something when so many signs point to me ending entirely? It’s hardly fair to Hermione-”_

_And how many times has Hermione told you that she’s not looking to be protected? She’ll make up her own mind._

He lays back on the bed, cupping his hands behind his head. He feels like all of those thoughts are tired and old. He folds them up in his mind, like a crumpled bit of paper, and tucks them away someplace unimportant. He doesn’t want to run through the usually insecurities. He gets it now, finally. The sky is not green, the grass is not blue. The world hasn’t changed, it just makes more sense.

He drifts off, surprised he is even as he’s doing so. He’s side has been hurting him all day.

When he wakes up, bleary and groggy, it’s dark out. The room is very dim, save for a small lamp that casts Hermione’s hunched profile in complete shadow as she sits, scribbling away on some parchment. She pauses, then looks up at him as he groans slightly, only wincing a little as he stretches his arms out.

“ ‘ lo. What time is it?”

she glances at the wall cloak. “It’s five past midnight. Happy birthday, Harry!”

She turns, so that the light isn’t blocked by her face anymore, instead illuminating half of it. Her smile is bright and genuine, and if he didn’t know better, he’d think she looks perfectly normal, like herself. But the corners of her mouth waver after a second, and her eyes can’t seem to stay on him too long.

“Blimey, it’s already my birthday. Also, brilliant. I mean. I’ve been doing magic anyway, I suppose. But now I don’t have to worry about it as much.”

Her smile falls into a half grin. “Congratulations. I’m afraid that I don’t have a present for you, exactly, but I figure we can have some cake later today, and I might have an idea.”

“An idea?”

Her eyes fall to the side and she tucks her hair behind her ear. “I was thinking about what you said, before, I mean, about - about how you and You-Know-Who being extremely different from each other might be the key to removing the bit of soul from your body. We’ve talked about how in the physical sense it’s in your scar, but in a less clear kind of way how it’s attached to your soul. So I was thinking that there must be something that can map out the soul, somehow. I mean, surely there’s been studies or something about what exactly Dementors eat, how it’s possible to eat a soul, what it means to alter a soul. Books about the dark arts go on and on about how practising them can alter your soul and what not.”

He sits up more fully, crosses his legs. “So you’ve been looking and..?”

She looks a little startled. “Oh, there’s nothing of course. At least not published. I do wonder if there is something in the Department of Mysteries, you know. We were rather distracted the last time we were there, but there were a lot of, of course, mysterious things around. That one room that wouldn’t unlock, the arch and veil that - that Sirius went through. I wonder, truthfully, if we can find something that can help us there, but I don’t know what it’d be or even where to start with that line of thinking. Instead - Instead I was thinking of what other sources have talked about - about -”

Here she swallows and shakes her head. She stands and crosses her arms across her stomach, starting a manic sort of pace across the room.

“I have an older cousin. My mum’s sister’s daughter. She’s maybe ten years older, we aren’t very close and she’s very different from me. She’s a bit of a free spirit.” Hermione says the last part with a frown, her crossed arms coming up higher on her stomach. Her lips purse just a little, and Harry smiles to himself, able to imagine her all at once, in her mid-forties, frowning at some children who are putting graffiti on a brick wall somewhere, her wondering if she should call it in, deciding against it, but tsking under her breath all the while. “Anyway, I overheard her on the phone talking about going to a club and - and -”

Harry has no idea where she’s going with this, but it seems to be making Hermione incredibly uncomfortable, as she’s now crossed her legs, and her arms have moved up even higher, and she’s so tense he wouldn’t be very surprised if she just shot suddenly into space if even one limb loosens, like a rubber band pulled tight.

“And she expressed that she had a spiritual experience of sorts whilst on the hallucinogenic Lysergic acid diethylamide, also known as LSD. She said that, and I quote, “I swear, I felt like I could see my very soul.” Here she sort of stutters to a stop, her mouth opening a closing a couple of times.

He stares at her, his mind completely blank, save for one thought that sort floats to the surface like a plastic water bottle discarded in a river. “Are - Hermione - Are you saying that you want me to take Acid?”

She uncrosses her arms, her hands flailing about. “No. No of course not. She didn’t see her soul, she saw hallucinations brought on by putting harmful and illegal chemicals into her brain. No. Honestly, Harry.”

Here she starts pacing again, glazing nervously at him. “It just made me think to look in a different direction. I’m looking into potions - reputable potions from known sources that can help - help.” Her whole body sags, and she flops onto the bed. “That can help clear your inner eye.”

Here Harry throws back his head, laughing like a long suppressed volcano spewing magma. After a while, Hermione starts hitting his shoulder. “Oh do stop now. What? Do you have any better ideas? Do you?”

At this his laughter dies down. “No, I suppose I don’t. Yeah, I’m up for it. At the very least it should make for an interesting day.”

At this, Hermione sits up straight, not quite frowning, but her mouth in a line. Her eyes are wide and dark, something desperate about them. “You have to take it seriously Harry. Messing around with souls is a complicated business that requires focus and understanding. The more I’ve been reading, the more worried I get. Some of these potions go terribly wrong, some people get so lost in their own minds, in their souls, that they can’t come back out, and have to spend the rest of their days in St. Mungo’s. We will both be dealing with magic neither of us understand, let alone are comfortable with. We have to be very, very careful.”

She looks so tired, so worried. He spent the whole evening sleeping while she’s had a stroke of inspiration, has been following it in a logical kind of way, and all he’s done so far is laugh.

He puts out his hand, lightly taking hers. Even to his own ears his voice sounds soft. “Of course, I’m sorry Hermione. It’s a better idea than anything I’ve come up with. I’ll take it seriously. What potions are you looking at? Have you narrowed it down at all?”

She glances down at their hands, looks back up at his face, licks her lips lightly, then abruptly stands. “I need to do more research, but for now I have it down to five potential options. If you want to look them over-”

“I do-”

“Then I have them bookmarked in a stack of books in the library. If you want to look them over.”

“Right-”

“I’m going to go to bed. By myself. I-I mean, I’m going to grab some linens and make this bed -”

“Oh no, take the larger bed, I made this one-”

“But it’s your house-”

“So? Just take the larger bed, Hermione. I want the bed that I so brilliantly made.”

She stares at him, opens her mouth a couple of times, then shakes her head. “Okay. Okay. Sure. Well, goodnight.”

He stands too, stares down at her. They’re standing close. His eyes glance down to her lips, but she takes a half step back, tucks her hair behind her ear again. “We’ll talk some more tomorrow.”

Harry nods, wishes her a goodnight, and heads to the library. And while he sits and stares at the books, he wills himself not to pull out the crumpled paper of uncertainty he had tucked away earlier.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey! So, if you're reading through this and think, hey, if he just turned 17, why were there no consequences to the other times he did magic before? 
> 
> That's an excellent question. 
> 
> Anyway, maybe we've moved away from crystals, yoga, and meditation. Will this be resolved now through Harry dropping some acid and taking some MDMA and just raving his way into enlightenment? While looking at his hand in wonder, will he be able to burp Voldemort out like an old 3 am kebab? 
> 
> Yes.


	15. Find tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, sermons in stones

The Potion of Internal Vision, or PIV, as they’ve come to call it, only has three ingredients.

1\. A cupped palmful of the true blood of an elder tree.  
2\. The imprint of a perfect Rowan berry pentagram on its own leaf.  
3\. A small symbol wand made of blackthorn, the core of it a sloe.

Though the list is small, it’s not exactly straight forward. It’s why Harry, and Hermione agreeing easily, picked it.

The next morning when she woke up, he was sitting in the living room, looking over it again. He tapped the page twice with his finger, nodding his head as he spoke. “It sounds right. And I like that it’s not exact. What we’re doing isn’t exact either. So it seems to fit.”

She agreed, she had even thought so when she bookmarked it, her eyes lingering on the page. But after they finished breakfast, Hermione excused herself to the library, saying that she wanted to make sure it’s the best choice by doing a thorough search.

It is the best choice, she doesn’t need to search further. Usually she would look anyway, just to make sure, but everything about the potion rings true. She simply doesn’t need to.

Instead, she’s sitting crossed legged in an armchair, staring at the same three paragraphs over and over again, not taking in anything.

_Why would he do that?_

_He already told you._

_Okay. Fine. I know him well enough to know that he isn’t messing around with me, or making some kind of joke. So he means it. Or thinks he does. Let's put that aside._

_You spent the whole last year, even more, here and there, having a crush on your other best friend. What does that make you then, if you start going around, sleeping in the same bed with and kissing Harry? It makes you exactly what you were afraid of becoming in third year, when your hormones seemed to be kicking in so much more strongly than theirs. It makes you a floozy who will date any guy that so much as shows even mild interest in your direction._

_Oh? Is that what this fear is? It doesn’t have anything to do with it being Harry? Harry who walked bravely off to protect the stone? Harry who killed a basilisk? Or even more, Harry, who sits with you as you cry and make birds? That’s the one, hm, that’s really striking fear in you, isn’t it? That Harry._

Hermione shifts in her seat, determined to read. Through sheer will power alone, she takes in a page, flips to the next.

Inevitably she drifts back. What is this voice even coming from? Why is this even happening?

She used to be a master over that voice, the one that whispers things in her ears that she didn’t like, _Do you really like Ron, or do you just think that he likes you?_ Or _, Do you really hate the book, or is it that Harry’s considered the better potion’s student now?_

But it’s like, ever since that night, when she stared at the window, and let that truth sink into her mind, she can’t help but feel that voice has gained prominence, has slowly taken power in her.

_Maybe it’s just growing up._

She closes the book with a sigh. For once, as she stands, as she walks towards the door, glides down the stairs, rounds the corner, she has no plan. There are no well rehearsed speeches, she hasn’t made up her mind, doesn’t understand her own heart. She walks like a fresh wound, oozing and painful, and faces Harry.

He’s staring with a frown at the locket. He turns to look at her, his eyebrows raising, and she bursts into tears.

At once he’s in front of her, she can only see his shoes, they blur, widen into a white shapeless blob, disappear, and reappear normal as the tears slowly drop her eyes onto the very shoes she’s looking at.

His hands are on her shoulders. She’s mortified. She’s never acting out on her feelings again, it’s going to be only pre-planned speeches, careful consideration, and hiding her feelings from here on out, forever.

“Hermione-” He sounds very uncertain, like it’s third year, and Ron won’t look at her without scowling, and he doesn’t know what to even say to her.

“I’m really sorry. I’m - I do mean what I said. I- but, I, I’m. The timing isn’t good. And I’ve already dragged you into this whole mess, so much more than I ever - I’m sorry I’ve put more pressure on you, I can just deal with it, you don’t have to reject me or anything, just - just pretend that - that nothing ever happened-”

Her head snaps up, and now it’s his face that blurs and widens and clears. Regardless, his feelings are plain as day to see, the familiar guilt prematurely lining his face once again, the sacrificial hunch of his shoulders. She grabs the front of his t-shirt, shakes him just a little. She’s never felt so outward in her life, never considered herself deceptive, but now feels like she has been, because nothing compares to how it feels now, like her emotions are her stomach, her intestines, all dangling in front of her, gross and impossible to stuff back, some grievous injury she didn’t even know she had.

“How many times have I told you? Haven’t we had this conversation before? Not everything is about you.”

His arms drop, his jaw clenches, but he just stares at her in silence.

It’s like vomiting, she can’t seem to stop. “I-my feelings, I- I’m a mess. I didn’t know. I never took it- I’ve never taken romance seriously. I’m a mess. A mess. You’ve done nothing wrong. I’ve-” Her breath shudders out.

A strange series of images flashes through her mind. She’s eight and her elderly great aunt touches her hair, tuts, and in a bad whisper, leans over to an older cousin, “At least she seems to be a clever child.”

The girls chasing her with a brush, “C’mon Herms, just let us give it go, then, C’mon. Maybe if we can tame it, you’ll even look cute.”

Mean cackles follow her like a cresting wave, another girl, breathless, adds. “Not too likely, but at least let us try.”

Ron saying, “No wonder no one can stand her.” Another time, older, his face desperate, “Oh, hey, you’re a girl.”

Pansy Parkinson, pulling at the sleeve of her favourite cardigan as she walks past, her face falling into an easy sneer, “Real cute, Granger.” The other girls with Pansy laugh about grandmother’s clothing as they walk ahead of her.

Snape’s eyes sparkling as he watches her teeth grow. “I see no difference.”

Hermione shakes her head, trying to gather something, anything to say, Harry’s face a mix of hurt and confusion.

“You-You’re the bravest person I know. The best. I just can’t believe- can’t believe-”

His eyebrows draw together. “Can’t believe?”

“Can’t believe that you’d like me.” The words come out a horrible wobble, she feels like a five year old, so young, a child, saying silly, stupid things. She tries to latch onto any train of thought that makes sense.

“I-I mean to say, that - that I’ve just never gotten any indication from you before that you’ve had any romantic inclinations for me.” Her tone shifts, she now sounds overly proper. Apparently she’s making another grab for Queen Hermione the Correct, but it sounds more like she’s reading out a teary school assignment.

Harry’s frowning at her. There’s something in his eyes, the way he looks with he’s zeroing in on something, a puzzle he’s already figured out, but only needs confirmation on. For the first time in their friendship, she’s rather displeased that he’s clever.

He crosses his arm over his chest. “I can understand being surprised, very surprised. But that’s not what you said, you said that you can’t believe that I would. I don’t understand that. What do you mean?”

She shoves her nose into the air, crosses her arms over her stomach, in her throat she’s preparing her most condescending tone. But even this won’t cover all her guts dangling there, fresh and exposed, and no matter how tightly she crosses her arms, she knows that she won’t be able to stuff them back in.

But more than anything, Harry’s steady gaze, the way his lips pull downward, like he’s already bracing for a lot of nonsense, makes her pause. Her breath catches in her throat, she lowers her head, her shoulders dropping from their former feigned righteousness. She puts one hand on her own cheek. “I’m a mess.”

His expression softens. “I don’t know what that means.”

She takes a deep shaky breath and looks more up at him, the brightness of the green behind his glasses, the darkness of his hair, but more than anything, there’s always something about him, the way he holds himself, the way that his mouth makes a firm line in determination when something hard needs to be done, the way that his eyes carry his intelligence, all the dots coming together for him before they do anyone else, all these things have, and always have, even when he was smaller than her, made him more attractive in her eyes than she’s ever really cared to examine, in light of her own unexamined evaluation of complete and total unattractiveness.

More tears slowly leak from her eyes.

“It means.” She tries to swallow down her thick voice. “That I have some things I need to work through, before I can really talk about us being anything more than friends. Not - not,” Here, she looks directly into his eyes, because it’s important that he understands. “Because you’ve done something wrong, or something unwelcome. Not at all. I just.”

“Am a mess?” Harry says softly, the smallest of smiles in the corner of his mouth.

“Yes, exactly.” She smiles wide at him, only a little shaky.

He nods. “Okay. I still, I mean, I don’t really understand. But. I certainly can give you more time to think about it. And whenever you’re ready, I’d like to better understand what you mean.”

She gives another watery smile.

“Can I hug you?” He cringes as he says it, but it only makes her smile more solid.

She steps forward, and his arms are around her, and her guts still feel ugly and exposed in front of her, but she can’t help, despite everything, feel comforted as her cheek rests against his shoulder.

The fire turns green, and all at once, with a grace he’s never shown before when using Floo, Ron is there in his dress robes.

He glances between them, the intensity of their hug, Hermione’s tear stained face, her cheek resting on his shoulder. His pale face reddens around the edges, and he gapes at them as they step apart.

Harry’s staring at him with his mouth in that determined line she so recently allowed herself to think on.

Ron stares back, and then, with a shake of his head, his voice quiet, says, “Scrimgeour is dead. Kingsley’s told us. Death Eater’s crashed the wedding.”

Hermione gasps and Harry grabs his shoulder. “Is everyone okay?”

Ron nods, sighs, won’t quite look at them. “The wedding itself went well. It was during the reception. Kingsley sent a patronus telling us the ministry has fallen, the Scrimgeour is dead, and that they are coming. That gave us enough time to get almost everyone out. There were only a few anyway, and Lupin and Tonks and everyone were able to keep them off. They were probably looking for you, anyway, because once they got a look, they just kind of left.”

Ron pushes his hands into his pockets. “It’s good you both didn’t come.”

Harry and Hermione stare at him in silence for a second, not understanding his tone. He shrugs, looks off to the side. “Things are going to be rough from here on out. Rougher.”

“I’m glad everyone is okay.” Harry’s voice is sincere, but there is confusion there that she thinks might be on her face as well. Ron looks quite dour.

“I should be off then. My family will need me.”

Harry’s mouth falls open. Hermione nearly shouts, reaching out with two hands. “Ron! You can’t. You absolutely can’t.”

Harry glances at her, frowns at her hands on Ron’s arm. Ron notices Harry’s frown and his expression worsens.

She doesn’t have time for all of this. “If you go back, it will be incredibly difficult for you to come here again. You have the ghoul and everything set up, Ron, you know your family will be watched. You won’t be able to contact us easily at all.”

Ron pulls his arm out of Hermione’s grasp. He glances from the books on the table to Harry’s unchanging expression. “Well, what have you got?”

“What?” Hermione doesn’t really understand what’s happening right now, or why Harry and Ron are staring at each other like that.

“You’ve come up with some sort of plan, haven’t you?”

Hermione tilts her head. “Are you staying?”

But Ron just takes another step back and looks at Harry instead. “Have you?”

Harry nods. “We’ve found a potion that might help me discover where we are connected, you know, on the inside.”

Ron nods, his expression changing into some sort of terrible sadness, though something bitter still lingers. “You have a plan, you even have a horcrux. I can be a help to my family, but I know-” Here he swallows, starts up again with a brittle sort of voice. “I know here I’ll just be in the way.”

Harry looks furious. “You arse.”

Ron grimaces at him, pulls a small package out of his pocket and places it on the table, then steps back into the fire. He doesn’t even look at Hermione before spinning away in the flames.

Hermione stares at the flames, unmoving, as they shift back to the usual reds, oranges, and yellows.

“I don’t understand. Why would he do that?” She can’t seem to make any kind of logic reconcile reality with what just happened.

Harry makes a low, angry sort of sound. He starts pacing around the living room. “Because he’s an arse. A stupid child. He’s jealous again. Even now he’s jealous, even when the world’s ending and his own family was attacked. How-” But the injustice of it seems to be too much for him, and he falls silent.

“What-What on earth would he be jealous of in that conversation?” She knows. But it’s too- too-

Harry turns to look at her with raised eyebrows and she can feel her cheeks reddening. She sits down, puts a pillow in her lap. She knows, but doesn’t understand, really, how things came to be like this. “He didn’t even go with me to the Slugclub party though. He just got with Lavender, why be jealous now?”

Harry looks uncomfortable, keeps opening and closing his mouth. He glances down at the package Ron left and opens it.

It’s a box with a slightly battered gold watch in it. Harry reads the note that comes with it, and his face sort of crumbles. He places it back on the table and leaves the room, and she can hear the sound of his footsteps thumping up the stairs.

She leans forward, takes the note out.

_Happy birthday!_

_We were sorry not to see you this summer at all, but still want to wish you a happy birthday, and such an important one, too! We hope you enjoy your watch and apologize for the dent in the back. My brother, Fabien, who used to own it, wasn’t very careful with his possessions._

_We hope to see you soon._

_Love from,_

_The Weasley Family_

Hermione slumps back against the sofa with a sigh, her emotions all wrung out. “Oh Ron, you idiot.”

The next day finds them standing in a field, the sun making the grass almost glow a green around them. The tree is not large and is low to the ground, the branches twisted, the leaves are bright, though darkening more, the summer sun beating out the fresh spring greenness. They’ve gone further north, to where the Elderberries have already started to grow, though they are still mostly red, a few have ripened into their non-poisonous shades of black.

Hermione has brought a fresh sealed container, meant to keep the berries from rotting as long as magically possible.

They had spent the rest of the day yesterday preparing for today, trying to gather the ingredients for the potions. They spent it mostly in awkward silence, the air thick with unspoken words, their posture tense with uncertainty on what they need to say, what they even think.

Today they still stand in silence, though less awkward and more tired than the one before. Hermione starts filling up half of the container, looking for the deepest berries, but taking some red ones, too, just in case. Harry stands staring at the tree. After a few minutes Hermione starts to feel a little irritated. “You could help, you know?”

He starts, gives her a small grin, and moves forward to pick them too. “Sorry. I just, I don’t know. It seems a bit too easy, the true blood being the berries.”

Hermione frowns down at her container. “What else would it be?”

He shrugs, and helps.

They find a Rowan tree, similar in shape, but somehow less twisted than the elder. They find berries with very neat pentagrams, but none with imprints from the berry on its own leaf, and definitely not one with a perfect imprint. They collect some anyway, leaves and all, but are starting to feel rather down about it.

A similar feeling happens with the blackthorn, which looks somehow to be a mix of the other two, but meaner, covered in dark thorns. They take some twigs, some thorns, they put some of its berries for the core in the container. But none of it feels right.

The day was hot, their conversation stilled, and they felt no magic in their ingredients.

Hermione, with her inner voice so much louder than it used to be, since that night, thinks to herself, as she lightly pinched a berry between her fingers, _You will not have what you seek until you get out of your own way. You can’t find the ingredients for PIV when you are actively blocking your own inward view, and you know it._


	16. Self-love is not so vile a sin, as self-neglecting

“It’s bitter.”

Hermione glances down at the page in the potion book like she doesn’t already have it memorised.

“It doesn’t say anything other than if nothing happens within a few hours, then it hasn’t worked."

“Alright. I’ll just- I don’t know. Lie down and read?” He leans backward, awkwardly. He reaches for a Quidditch magazine, places his hand behind head, just a touch too casually.

Hermione grabs her book on wand lore and sits too stiffly in the armchair across from him.

It’s been an awkward few days. They haven’t really spoken, not about anything that matters. Like that Ron has stormed off, or that the war is starting in earnest with all these new rules, or that her feelings remain painful and terrifying in her chest.

She’s taken to reading The Prophet in the kitchen in the middle of the night. Might as well, when she can’t sleep anyway. The tiredness, the confusion about Harry, the anger with Ron, the fact they kept working and working on the potion they knew, in their hearts, they didn’t prepare the right ingredients for, the fear, everything, is culminated together to make her feel like she’s in a play, or a very dramatic and negative daydream she would have cooked up when she at her parent’s house the summer after third year, just to make herself feel bad.

There are little moments when her mind can’t seem to handle the tension anymore, and drifts off to other thoughts. Thoughts about what she’d like for dinner, thoughts about how she can give Kreacher something nicer to wear without actually giving him anything. Sometimes she would get absorbed in her books more than she’s even used to.

It’s been a nice distraction, learning about symbol wands. It turns out that they predate normal ones by a vast margin. That apparently normal wands came from them. Symbol wands were there to help concentrate magical intentions into a potion or ritual. They are a sort of missing link between the hands and will that magic used to be, to the concentrated finesse of modern magic.

She finds this endlessly fascinating. They don’t really talk about it at Hogwarts, as wand magic takes up so much time by itself. But there is a whole world of magic out there that doesn’t use wands at all. Magical creatures know this of course, but wizards dismiss it out of hand as less efficient. And a lot of the time they’re right. Why do a whole ritual with runes or potions to concentrate enough force into your spell to actually make it work? People can either do a three day ritual to make their house unplottable, or they can wave their wands and concentrate and have it done in mere minutes. It’s not really a question most of the time about what's better.

_But it’s not really about efficiency, here, is it? It’s about truth, an ambiguous and dangerous concept. Truth. This potion is about inward truth, the worst kind. I can read about the history of wands all I want. I can research and research, become a wand lore scholar, go work for Ollivander, if he’s still alive. And in the meantime I can fail myself, Harry, and maybe the entire wizarding world by being unwilling to make myself even a little uncomfortable by trying to figure out my own feelings, and use those feelings to find the correct magical ingredients in order to perhaps save his life._

_But since when have I turned into Luna? Has desperation just made me willing to go along with some barmy potion in a book? I have to feel out the ingredients? Who’s even said so? You’re just making this up._

_Everything’s made up though. Magic, how we organise it, how we see ourselves, how everything works. It’s all made up. We didn’t have to decide on wands. We didn’t have to pick those shapes, we didn’t have to make magic more efficient, this is just one thing that we’ve run with. You know the usual methods won’t work. It’s all hands and will and confusion. Stop trying to talk yourself out of this._

She starts as the magazine clutters to the floor, the pages waving, then fluttering closed. She doesn’t know how long they’ve been quiet together, so entrenched in her own thoughts she’s been.

Harry is asleep. She stands up, leans over him. He’s making his normal sleeping face, eyebrows a little pinched, mouth a little tense. She thinks maybe he’s just fallen into normal sleep.

She reaches out, slowly, gently, and lightly touches his hair. She sort of wants to run her fingers through it, kind of always has, but she stills her arms, and settles for a soft pat instead. Instantly his eyes open, only a second of confusion there, before he’s sitting up.

“Did anything happen?”

He’s staring down at his lap. He doesn’t answer for a beat, then another, too long. Finally, he answers a quiet no.

She sits down next to him, the closest she’s been since their hug after her crying fit. “You don’t sound too sure.”

“I- It wasn’t it. I’m sure, I just know it wasn’t. I barely even started to dream as I doze. I dreamt of-”

He looks up at her with a frown. “I dreamt of you, sitting at a desk in third year, your eyes all tired, you always looked close to screaming, to tears, you looked like you needed a week of pure sleep, like you needed a friend, but I was still angry with you. And I didn’t want to make Ron angry, you know? But I’m not a thirteen year old boy anymore, and right now I could give fuck all if Ron’s angry at me. So I’ll say to you now what I wish I said to you then, and try to be a real friend.”

Hermione stills, watches wearily as Harry leans forward, his eyes a little clearer than they have been in a while. She wonders if the potion worked, at least a little. Or maybe it was just the nap.

“You need to work this out with yourself now, because whatever you’re doing now isn’t working. Reject me if you’d like, tell me you love Ron, decide to give this silly, hippyish sounding potion up for a lark, do the opposite of all that, whatever you do, stop what you’re doing now. I can practically see you dragging yourself in circles in your own mind. Making a choice won’t kill you, Hermione, but living in a weird mental ambiguity will drive us both mad.”

“I’m not in love with Ron.” She’s not sure why that’s the first thing out of her mouth. Harry raises his eyebrows and tries not to look too pleased.

“Good. Alright.”

She stares at him. “Maybe I’m overthinking things.”

He snorts.

She sighs. “Old habits are hard to kick.” She puts her book on the coffee table and rubs her hands down the knees of her jeans.

To her surprise, Harry stands, gives her a soft smile. “I’m going to put the ingredients away. Maybe we can give it another go tomorrow?”

She sits in silence for a few minutes, her eyes heavy, her mind tired. She goes to lay down, just to rest her neck, which aches from all the reading she’s been doing.

She lies in the silence, the light from outside peeking in through the curtains. She watches the dust swirl and fall and lift, and allows herself not to think at all as her eyes drift shut.

  
She dreams she’s drinking tea in the back garden of her parent’s house again. She would come home after primary sometimes to find her mum there. Her mum would listen to her complaints about the day, give her advice, which she actually listened to sometimes, though she always acted a little put upon. She misses her so much now, wishes she could take her mum’s hand and ask her what to do. But her mum hasn’t had answers in a long time. Or maybe she wasn’t asking the right questions.

She looks up at her mum’s smiling face, she must have had a good day at the office, she’ll be in a good mood. It makes her hopeful.

“Mum. How-How do you know what to do when you’re unsure? How do you make a decision, I mean? When there aren’t clear answers?”

Her mother’s smile doesn’t falter, but as she’s sitting across from her, her features keep shifting, changing, aging, so that she looks for a while like her grandmother, or how she imagines her to look from those pictures her mum still cries at. The more tea she drinks, the more quickly her mother and grandmother change back and forth between each other. She doesn’t answer for a while, and Hermione drinks her tea cup empty, waiting in growing trepidation.

She finally speaks, her voice younger, then older, then younger, the effect disconcerting. “You know Hermione. Sometimes life is very messy. We all like to pretend that it isn’t. Particularly us three. We always have our clothes neatly pressed, the work done and put away before anyone knows how hard we worked at it, always have the right answer. The idea of expelling any kind of gas in front of other people is so unpardonable as to cause shame. We are both more than and less than human to ourselves. But when we come down to it, Hermione, we are all human and to be human is to be disgusting. We are blood and bone and meat, and though we try to make it pretty as best we can, underneath it is always that. At the core of us, we are ugly. We are born screaming, pushed from another body, covered in blood and fluids, connected still by the string of flesh that kept us alive. We are all born this way, all of us. Sometimes what really matters is not pretty, sometimes we are all blood and bone and meat, violence, tears and screaming. Sometimes to find answers, we have to look at the core of ourselves, we have to look all that ugly we have been straightening away right in the face.”

Her grandmother leans closer. Her mother speaks, “Did you really think, Hermione, that the true blood of an Elder tree would be the pretty and easy berries? Come now, dig deep, do better. And don’t fret for once. Everything else follows naturally.”

She’s awake at once, the room dark. She’s still in the position she laid down in. She can hear Harry’s even breathing from the other side of the room.

She stands, shakes out her hair as though releasing cobwebs. Before she can talk herself out of it, before she can really explore what a terrible idea it is, she walks almost silently through and then out of the house.

She apparates away to where they went before to gather the ingredients.

There’s no one. The moon is full, her eyes haven’t adjusted to any light yet, so it seems bright, somehow, the glow too powerful, like she’s looking at a negative of the world, rather than the world itself.

The Elder tree is an innocent plant, sitting alive and whole in the blue light, and though she knows it doesn’t really make sense, she still mutters an apology, still means it, as she raises her wand and sends one of the more powerful blasting cruses she’s ever done.

The noise is tremendous and though it should be startling, she finds it oddly satisfying in all that oppressive quiet that existed before. The top half rips away, tumbles down the little hill behind it, crashing and ripping and crunches until it settles. She marches forward, the rest of the trunk in pale spikes jutting up angrily, pointy and crude.

She reaches out her hand and with her fingernails pulls at the center of the wood, which is oddly soft, which seems to come away easily from the rest. It still pokes into her fingers, still scrapes and fights, and she feels like the tree is giving away it’s blood, bested by other forces, but still is fighting back just a little, just something to leave it’s life by.

She clutches the wood in her lightly bleeding hand, then walks over to the Rowan tree, takes a rough part of the wood clenched in her fist, and scrapes the bottom of the berry until the skin’s gone, then presses against the leaf. She’s surprised to see the five lines, black looking in the light. It’s hardly perfect, colors smudging all around it, but she thinks that that’s not the kind of perfect that the potion meant anyway.

She places the leaf in her clenched fist, then goes to the Blackthorn and with her aching hand tears a thorn off. She grabs a sloe and turns on her heel.

She slips inside, heads towards the kitchen. She puts the wood and leaf on the table, then, using a small knife, hollows the Blackthorn out. She pauses before placing the sloe in, her hands shaking, still bleeding a little.

She feels like her energy has left her all at once. She thinks she dreamt about being impatient with herself, she can’t really remember it anymore. But the need to actually do something was so strong as to make her reckless.

Who is she now? Who is this person who works on impulse and instinct? She’s not herself anymore, hasn’t been in awhile.

Her hands hurt, they sting so much. The clump of wood looks like failed wood chips, the leaf just has a smudge darkness on it now. The blackthorn lays hollowed and cracked in front of her, it’s berry sitting sweetly next to it.

She doesn’t know who she is any more. Desperation has brought her to new lands where she doesn’t speak the language and every time she tries, she feels embarrassed. This isn’t her area, this isn’t how she’s useful to people. It’s not her character.

Her hands keep shaking, she presses them to her face and feels like she’s one hundred years old and infant all at once. To think that she used to pride herself on her intelligence, to think that she used to think she knows anything at all makes her feel like the most foolish child that’s ever lived. All those smug moments, raising her hand in class, knowing the answer, correcting those around her, getting points, like it matters, like any of it ever mattered at all. Because here she is, crying into her bleeding hands, bits of broken plants all around her, stabbing and stabbing into the dark, accidentally alienating one friend and hurting the other, focusing on souls as the world crumbles around them, as all their rights are swallowed one by one, as Harry sleeps with a monster in his head, tethered onto his soul.

And all she can do is sit there and cry because she knows absolutely nothing, is a help to no one, can’t fix anything. Intelligent was the only thing she had going for her. So who is she now? All that’s in front of her is unknown and everything that makes her is unclear.

She wipes at her tears with the heel of her hands, and for some reason all she can think of is her father kissing the top of her head on the first day of school as he’s dropping her off. He kisses the top of her head and smiles as she turns to leave. But when she looks back, she sees that his face is soft and sad and worried, something in his eyes looks proud and scared, and as she turns back she doesn’t understand why.

She thinks maybe she does now.

With a shaky breath she turns towards the sloe, pinches it between her fingers lightly. Symbol wands are supposed to help the force of intention, the will of the magic. So what is her will? To help him see in himself? To help him discover where they connect so that they might sever it?

She rolls the berry in her palm, watches it settle only to move it again. But why? Why does she want that for him?

_Because I love him._

She holds her palm out flat and still. She feels her stomach clench, the old worries coming back like whispers down a hallway. But just as all the points she had gotten for her Hogwarts house don’t feel too important right now, those whispers don’t seem terribly important either.

Maybe she’s weird looking, and maybe it turns out she doesn’t know anything at all and everything is scary all the time now, and she doesn’t handle scary very well. Perhaps she doesn’t have a lot going in her corner, but she does know that, in her heart of hearts, underneath all the ugly and messy in her, maybe even part of it, she does love him.

She does love him, she knows that for sure.

She takes the sloe, shoves it into the thorn, the skin of the berry dangling out, the juices seeping out through the cracks, the flesh glistening, barely fitting, it looks a mess, just like the other two.

Somehow, they all seem right, laying there next to each other.

She takes a dark blue baking dish from the shelf, fills it with water, pours it into the cauldron hanging over the smoldering fire. She pours slowly, watching her own reflection, pale, small smears of blood on her checks, her eyes dark, wave and distort her features as the water moves. She takes some of the wood, weighs it her palm for just a second, before she puts it in. Next comes the leaf, fluttering slowing down into the water from where she drops it.

Last comes the symbols wand, holding together long enough, at least, to submerge under the water.

She stokes the fire, sits and watches as the cauldron slowly heats.

She rests the side of her face against the table, stretches her arms out in front of her, and falls asleep in her palms facing up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A very Hermione focused chapter. It will make sense, as there are, unsurprisingly, some extremely Harry focused chapters on the horizon.


	17. We know what we are, but know not what we may be

Harry walks into the kitchen and for a second his stomach drops. Hermione lays limp at the table, her outstretched hands scrapped and irritated looking. There’s clumps of wood, leaves, and some dark stains further down from her. There’s something simmering in the cauldron. He feels like maybe he’s slept through some sort of storm.

He quickly rounds the table, ducks to look at Hermione’s face. His stomach unclenches a little, as her face is smooth and soft in her sleep. There seems to be little specks and smears of something crusty and brownish red on her face. He feels his stomach drop, again, when he realises it’s blood.

He watches her sleep, her breaths even and deep for a while, before he stands up again, looks over into the cauldron.

It’s PIV, lightly bubbling, a deep forest green, almost black, but somehow clear looking, as though looking at a stream sliding past, or looking through wavy dark glass. It looks exactly like it’s supposed to.

“What the hell?” He mutters to himself, he crosses his arm underneath his chest.

There’s a small groan behind him.

Hermione blinks at him blearily before her face scrunches into a grimace. She looks at her hands and winces.

Moving back around the table, he swings open a cabinet door and pulls out a general healing ointment and some cleanser.

He turns back around and Hermione’s stretching, her hair wild, there’s dirt crusted on the knees of her jeans and bits of wood and bark on the cuff of her hoodie.

“Did you go outside or something?” It doesn’t make sense at all, he almost feels foolish just asking, as that’s not something Hermione would ever do, but it certainly looks like she has. He can’t imagine what’s happened. He expects her to roll her eyes or scoff, have some sort of snarky but obvious explanation, but she doesn’t.

Instead, she keeps glancing up at him, but only briefly. It’s been like that for the last week, he almost expects it. But there’s a different quality to this, rather than it being born from awkwardness because he can’t seem to keep his mouth shut to save his life. It seems to be from guilt, the way she’s biting her lip, the way her cheeks are starting to redden.

“Merlin! You went outside! By yourself!” He puts the medicine in his hands down on the table none too gently. He’s maybe never felt so incredulous in his life, he might have felt less incredulous when he found out his mentor and the guiding force in his life had been plotting his death for who knows how long, because in his heart of hearts, he kind of knew there was something wrong with his connection with Voldemort.

But never would he have guessed that he’d be sitting next to a bloodied Hermione, gapping with disbelief, on the verge of calling her reckless.

“That was incredibly reckless. What- why? Why would you even do that? Hermione, they are doing incredibly terrible things with laws around muggleborns now. Not to mention that you are associated with me and people know that you’re most likely with me. What couldn’t wait until morning? What would I have done if I woke up and you were just gone and I didn’t even know what happened? That’s just - How? What? I’m-” He’s not even sure what he’s feeling, he words want to come all at once and instead clog in his throat, as though water is trying to push through a narrowed hose. He makes a strange gurgling sound.

Hermione’s staring at him with wide eyes, nodding as she speaks. “It was very stupid. Plus I went back to the place we went to before, which seems even worse to me. What if people saw us there? What if they set up an alarm in case we came back? I didn’t even think to leave you a note! That’s just too terrible to even think about!”

Her agreeing with him has somehow made the tumult of words trying to get out of him worse, and he just makes a scoffing sound, followed by a strange series of huffs and a broad sweeping gesture that he’s not entirely sure the meaning of, outside of it being some sort of request for explanation.

She bites her lip again and shakes her head, looking distressed. “I don’t know how to explain it. I think I had a weird dream? I don’t know. But I woke up with sudden inspiration. I felt like I had to do it then, right then, or it would never work. I was in a weird sort of- of, oh, I don’t know, I felt like I was in a trance. You know how I get sometimes, right? If I get an idea and I just have to run off to the library? It was like that, but this time I ran off to the woods and blew up a tree.”

He makes a horrified, strangled sort of sound. She seems to understand him perfectly, nodding quickly in agreement. Her eyes are still wide, she looks horrified as well, as though someone else is telling their story to her.

“I blasted apart an Elder tree, scratched out some of the wood, used that wood to rub the bottom of the Rowan berry to put on a leaf. Then I grabbed a thorn and a sloe and came right back here. I think it kind of hit me what I’d just done, a little, I had a bit of an existential crisis about it, I think, if it makes you feel any better. I am well aware that that was mad, I assure you. Then I realised as I was making the symbol wand what intention to put into the potion. I realised I-”

Her voice stops, her shoulders pull to her ears, her face goes impossibly red and she looks away from him completely. She stands stiffly and walks over to the potion bubbling in the cauldron. She looks down at it with furrowed brows, which quickly raise, and she looks at him, then the potion, amazed, her mouth falling open a little. “Harry! Harry! The potion - It looks perfect!”

He stands too and leans against the mantel on the other side of the fireplace. “It really does. So whatever mad impulse you were working off of seemed to do the job, even if it was the stupidest thing I’ve ever seen you do. I mean, I’ve seen you do a lot of mental things, but usually you plan them first, which is more mental in it’s own way, I suppose, but I’ve never thought you would do something so - so-” He trails off.

She’s looking at him so intensely. Her face is still red, high on her cheeks, but her eyes are looking right at him, they look impossibly big, smudged looking somehow, he realises with a jolt, because her eyes are watery. He stands up straight, a little alarmed. But when she blinks tears don’t fall, instead they seem clearer. She takes a shaky kind of breath, but her voice is certain when she speaks.

“The intention that I put into the symbol wand was that I love you.”

He doesn’t understand. “What?”

“Of course the purpose, the intention, of this potion is to have you look into yourself, to see where the connection is. But then I thought, but why? Why do I want that, it seemed important to know. So. It’s because I love you.”

His mind is blank. He’s spent the last few days kicking himself, thinking over and over about how he’s mucked everything up for everyone. He would feel little tingles of agony at the idea that he’s ruined the two friendships that mean more to him than anything else in his life, his only family. He couldn’t think of how to fix it, couldn’t take his words back, first because that wouldn’t fix anything and second, because it would be too big of a lie to pull off.

It’s like, ever since he told her, ever since he realised it himself that one afternoon, he can’t help be notice it all the time, marvel at how he didn’t notice it before, the way he knows her face, the way he looks to her to talk with any of his thoughts, the way she scrunches up in chairs, how she rolls her eyes when she thinks an author’s being stupid, how she still smiles so sweetly, so sincerely at Kreacher even when he’s being rude. Hermione has a lot of faults, but cruelty is very far removed from being one of them. It’s like he’s opened a door to a room that’s been slowly filling with water, and all of these thoughts keep rushing out all the time and there’s nothing to stop it, no way to close the door even if he wanted to. Which he doesn’t, not really.

Hermione steps close to him, illuminated by the dying embers below, softening all the features that have already been soothed into gentleness, so that she looks both somehow younger and older at the same time, or maybe just more knowing, more open, more herself. “I’m sorry I was so thick, Harry. I’m not saying that I - that my surprise, or that my uncertainty at myself have all gone away, but they simply just aren’t as important as you. It’s just more important that you know. That I love you, and I fancy you, and I think you’re good looking. Very attractive.” She finishes this little speech with a firm head nod of confirmation, her eyebrows drawn together in seriousness, and with the smallest and most tender of smiles on her lips.

Words don’t seem to be his strong suit today. He lets out a little laugh, a chuckle of pure happiness, and leans down as she moves up, and then they’re kissing.

If he thought he understood it before, it’s nothing compared to the understanding he has now, how wonderful it can be to kiss someone.

It doesn’t feel quite real, as though such types of happiness should be forbidden, as though they should be impossible as the world sinks further and further into darkness, as a piece of the man who murdered his parent’s soul sits somewhere in his. But yet, here it is, a beam of sunlight, a blooming flower, a surge of energy, just as simple and wonderful as it was always meant to be.

They pull apart, and there is no darkness anywhere in their smiles, in their beaming faces.

And for a minute they stare at each other like fools.

But then a bubble bursts loudly in the cauldron next to them, and they look towards it, still holding hands.

As they stare, the smiles drop from their faces, not all at once, not completely, but enough, enough for reality to make its way back in. Harry feels the slightest of burns in his forehead, realises that it’s always there and he’s just gotten used to it.

Hermione looks down at their hands with a small grin, no longer beaming, but that happiness not buried, not defeated, just joining her back in the world. “My hands still hurt. I think I must have gotten a lot of splinters in there.”

Harry grimaces a little, holds the back of her hands instead, cradling them, and he leads them back over towards the table.

He dabs her hands with the cleanser, watching in interest as the tiny pieces of wood leave her skin. Some of the tension leaves her shoulders. Harry develops a little smile as he goes, closing the cleanser and moving on to the ointment.

“What is it?” Hermione asks, smiling a little back, always so curious.

Harry shakes his head, gives a little shrug. “I was just thinking this would have been useful when I replaced part of the Dursley’s fence. I was plucking out splinters for weeks, it felt like.”

He starts rubbing ointment on her hands, taking his time. It feels very nice, but also seems somehow properly magical erasing all the small cuts and scrapes with his hands.

He can feel himself still smiling a little. It feels very nice not to hide it.

“They made you take down a fence without gloves?” Her voice seems a little stilted, but he’s working on one of the larger scrapes.

He’s concentrating for a second, trying to make sure that he doesn’t agitate anything by rubbing too much. He isn’t thinking too hard, just says the memory as it comes to him. “Hmm? Yeah, they got into a fight with the neighbors about it actually, because they didn’t ask first and then requested that the neighbors pay half of the cost of wood and ‘labor’. The neighbors laughed in their faces, said their ‘labor’ was just that boy of theirs they’re always bullying. Aunt Petunia was mortified, she didn’t let me do any lawn work for two weeks, which at first I thought was a relief, but it wasn’t really, because I was just given more to do inside, with her breathing down my neck all day. I’d much rather get sun burns.” Harry feels the smoothness of her hands with his thumbs for a second, just a little shyly, before he pulls away and closes the ointment up. He looks back up at her, and the last of the little smile he still has on his lips fades away at the look on her face. “What?”

She hesitates. “How- How mean were they? They didn’t feed you well, it seems, they didn’t like having you around, they made you do a lot of chores. It just sounds so terrible. But were they - were they quite rough with you?”

He knows what she’s really asking. He has one answer, and it’s true enough, but he has a feeling like maybe it wouldn’t be good enough for her. It’d been an emotional morning already, in a nice way, for once. He doesn’t really want to get into it. Hermione frowns, looks a little nervous, he’s not sure what face he’s making.

He pulls out his fake smile, easy as remembering how to ride a bike, which he tries to not think on too much. “They were twats, that’s for sure. But they weren’t all that. Don’t worry about it.”

He stares too much, waiting to see what she’ll do. For a second it looks like she’s going to push it, but instead she lets out a breath. “Alright.”

He knows that the conversation is far from over, but he appreciates the break. He can feel his smile changing into something that matches what he’s feeling at least.

Standing, he puts the medicine back and rounds the table again, staring down at the cauldron and humming. He takes the thick cauldron gloves and pulls it from the flames, sitting it on the cooling rack away from the fire. “We should probably let that cool, then?”

Hermione’s staring into the middle distance again but answers him in an absent kind of way. “Yes, of course, unless still boiling water sounds tasty. It shouldn’t take long though.”

He nods, sits down. They sit in silence for a while. Hermione’s thinking hard about something, and he finds himself very interested in finding out what, when she snaps out of it. He thinks she looks a little tired. He realises that she woke up in the middle of the night, ran around blowing up trees, then slept weirdly at the table. It doesn’t seem too restful. He’s about to suggest that they go lie down when she turns her head and looks at him like she’s McGonagall and his Fred or George.

“Harry.” Her voice is so stern. “I really think the potion is going to work this time. So it’s really important, very important, that you take this seriously.”

He leans back in his chair. Declarations of love and beaming happiness seem to be pretty removed from her now, but under the layers of somewhat condescending concern, he can still see the love there, the worry gnawing away somewhere in her. It makes him less snippy in his reply than he might have been. “I thought trying to sort through my soul to find a bit of an evil wizard’s would be fun, kind of a holiday really, but fine, if you want to be a downer about it.”

She rolls her eyes, almost out of habit it seems, but a genuine frown follows, even the habitual condescension leaves her, so all that’s left is the worry. “Everything I’ve read about any of these types of potions warns over and over about how important it is not to get lost in yourself. Our minds are very cyclical, are emotions even more so, so it sounds easy to do. It’s supposed to take some emotional awareness to bring yourself out of it. If it were Ron, I’d probably just not let him do it, to be honest. But, I don’t know, there aren’t clear instructions on what that all means. I wish there was some spell I would know for sure would pull you out of it, but there isn’t.”

Harry doesn’t allow himself to feel too nervous. What would be the point? He’s going to take it anyway.

Kreacher appears silently. He glances from one face to another, to the cauldron in the corner. He walks quietly over to it, glances down at the now calm liquid. “Tis old magic.” His voice is rough and low. But then he turns, and his face is in its usual dour expression. “Would Master and Miss like breakfast?”

They say yes, sitting in silence until Kreacher puts the bacon, eggs and toast in front of them and leaves.

They eat for a little bit before Hermione puts down her toast and takes a deep breath. “Would you like to go on a date with me?”

“What?” For all the worry in her expression, he was expecting something else.

“After the potion. Would - Would you like to go on a date with me? I-I mean, not outside, of course, but, I don’t know. I’ll think of something, some kind of date. Would you like that?”

He blinks a couple of times, but then he finds himself nodding, glowing inside a little because she asked. “Yeah. That sounds great.”

She gives him a happy smile, out shining even the worry in her eyes for a second. “Great. It’s nice to have something to look forward to.”

“Yeah, it really is.” He hadn’t realised how he hadn’t anticipated anything other than fear, uncertainty, and death for quite some time. “A date. Yeah. Cool.” He thinks he might be smiling just as much.

The texture of her smile softens after a moment, then dims. “If you don’t mind, I think I might hold your hand after you take PIV, while you're under it. I just think it might be good to have a, I don’t know, a tether of some sort, connecting you to the physical world. If you don’t mind, of course.”

Harry smiles at her. “I can think of a few worse things than you holding my hand, Hermione.” He has to suppress a mad urge to wink at her. Who knew dating would turn him into such a dork.

He lets out a cough, turns to look at the cauldron. There’s no steam anymore, the liquid quite still. He places his hand over it. “It’s cool now. Let’s get going.”

“Now?” Hermione sounds startled, and he turns to look at her. Her plate is mostly empty.

“Unless you want more breakfast?”

She shakes her head, looking nervous. He pulls a vial out of the cupboard, floats it over the cauldron in a practised motion, watches it drip into it until it fills.

They walk out of the kitchen, into the living room, and stare at the sofa for a second, both thinking about how to make themselves comfortable and hold hands at the same time. “We could go to the bedroom?”

Hermione shakes her head. “I want to be near the floo, just in case something happens.”

He’s not sure how being nearer to the floo would help exactly, but Hermione’s already sitting at one end of the sofa. She pats her lap and says, “Come here.”

For a second he thinks she’s asking for him to sit there, but then her meaning becomes obvious.

He lies down, his head in her lap.

“Comfy?” Hermione smiles down at him.

“Yes, very.”

She hands him the vile, he downs it all at once. It tastes like chewing lawn clippings, like breathing in just as wood fire starts to smoke, and something a little sweet.

He lays back down, feels Hermione’s hand slide into his, before nothing.


	18. Give sorrow words

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, definitely getting a little, uh, different with it this chapter. Let me know what you think! We have a bit of a journey in front of us.

He wakes up with his head flat on the sofa. He turns to find Hermione reading a book in the armchair across from him.

“Guess it didn’t work, then?” He sits up as Hermione scoffs.

“I told you it wouldn’t.”

He frowns at her, glances around the room. It seems much cleaner, brighter, somehow.

“How long was I asleep?”

She closes her book, gives him a smirk that doesn’t fit the situation at all. “Maybe half an hour.”

At his continued frown, her smirk softens into an uncomfortable look. “I know you’re worried about N.E.W.T.s next year, Harry, but don’t look so put out. I told you and Ron that that enhanced memory potion was a scam.”

He blinks at her, his heart beating faster. “This isn’t right.”

She raises her eyebrows just as Ron saunters into the room. “Oh no mate, guess it didn’t work then. Good thing we only paid a sickle for it.”

Hermione stands and walks over to him, slipping her arm around his waist. Ron dips his head and kisses the top of her head. Harry feels his stomach clench, his throat close as though someone is wrapping their fingers around it.

_Ah, I guess it has worked. Thanks then brain, fun start._

Hermione and Ron drop their arms, stepping towards him at the look on his face. Hermione reaches out, taking the sleeve of his shirt. “Are you feeling okay?”

At Harry’s flinch, she turns towards Ron, hands on her hips. “I thought you tested to see if they’re any poisons in it first, at least?”

Ron glances between them, his eyes a little frantic. “I did, we did, didn’t we Harry? Honestly, it just seemed like a calming draught with something citrus-y in it, but-”

“Citrus-y! But we don’t know how citrus reacts to that potion, you idiots.” She turns to look at him, her eyebrows furrowing together as she peers into his eyes, pulls his arms out in front of him to check his wrists.

“I don’t see anything alarming yet. But we still should tell your parents, Harry.”

“What?” He says it too quietly.

“Oh C’mon Hermione, he just needs to burp or something, why bring-”

“Look at him Ronald, he looks like he’s going to pass out or burst into tears or something. Let’s go Harry.” Hermione looks stern, like those times she kidnapped him, a little. She takes his wrist, leads him through the back hallway where the laundry room and a small bathroom are, out through the door to the back garden.

They never bothered to do anything with it. The small stone garden was overrun with brown weeds, tall dried grass, vines that bent and rotted the fence. Every time he went back there with some sort of intent to do something with it, he became overwhelmed and turned right back around.

But now there’s a long table taking up the lion share of it, hanging plants dangling from here and there, flowers blooming along one part of the fence, vines carefully cultivated on delicate looking trellis along another part. A small fountain makes a tinkling sound in the corner, though it’s calming effects are mitigated by the loud voices and laughter coming from people sitting at the table.

Remus is leaning over Sirius’s shoulder, pointing at something on a piece of paper. Sirius says something with mock seriousness back, but Remus just slaps the back of his head and they both start laughing. Dumbledore is leaning forward, whispering something to James, his eyes twinkling, James’ eyes start to take on a similar look the longer he talks. Mr. and Mrs. Weasley are talking to Ginny about her hair, flipping it this way and that. Ginny looks annoyed, says something that makes the two of them reply in fast, high voices. And in the middle, looking over her shoulder, then twisting in her seat, is Lily, who’s looking straight at him, growing worry on her face.

Harry sits right where he’s standing. He can hear Hermione’s gasp, can hear his mother’s voice, frightened, the only way he ever seems to hear it.

He closes his eyes. He can feel many pairs of hands on him, voices coming closer, the air smells sweet and warm, all summer.

_None of this is real. You have to move on._

Then he feels no hands, hears no voices, the sweet and warm smell remains.

He opens his eyes. He’s in the Dursley’s garden, a small shovel in his even smaller hand. He rests his cheek against the stone lining of the flower patch and cries.

Taking some deep breaths, he wipes his cheeks with the end of his light blue shirt, much too large for him and already a little frayed.

“Focus. Focus.” He mutters, glancing around, glancing down at himself, though he doesn’t have far to look.

“Bugger.” He appears to be a very small child.

_What on earth am I doing here?_

He doesn’t know what this is. He doesn’t know if it’s his mind or his soul or if there is any difference between the two of those things. He doesn’t really know what he’s looking for. When he imagined finding Voldemort’s bit of soul, he pictured it being a dark, oozing spot in some of his memories, or maybe like a rickety and awful bridge off into a dark abyss. He didn’t expect this. An unreal moment, more a painful daydream than anything, and now what, a memory?

Sighing, he puts the shovel down and walks into the kitchen. Aunt Petunia is reading a magazine, her lips pursed. She glances at him as he enters, her lips straightening into a severe line.

“I didn’t say you could come inside.”

He stares at her. This is all in his own head, right? He can do whatever he wants. None of this is real.

“Aunt Petunia, why-”

“No asking questions.” Her voice is a whip.

He swallows a reflexive apology, his hands shaking. He can’t seem to find his voice. He wants to turn right back around, rest his head against the stone. She looks so tall, a rail thin giantess, as she stands and leans over him, her face turning white with anger.

He forgot how afraid of her he used to be. By the time he learned he was a wizard, he was largely over them and their threats. He didn’t care about them anymore. But it wasn’t always like that. At one point he had tried so hard. Tried so hard to please them, learned, eventually, that that was impossible. But he used to fear her anger, her disapproval, above all else. He used to live off her small smiles, her tiny nods of approval, for months.

Now, he’s an adult, fighting for his life in a very strange way. He has seen many things, felt many things, and Aunt Petunia has long since stopped holding dominion over him. He feels his fear slide away, only left with a vague curiosity. What answer would he come up with, in this version of Aunt Petunia looming over him?

“Why do you hate me?” His voice is so small, so high pitched.

She flinches up, the whiteness of her face changing to a more frightened expression. “I - I don’t - What do you - What did I just tell you boy?”

Harry scoffs, crosses his small arms in front of him, leans against the cabinet doors. “Just tell me, shouldn’t I at least know why? Why do you hate me?”

She reaches out, grabs him by the upper arm, her thin fingers like wires. He winces. _Great, this still hurts. Very nice, thanks potion._

She starts shaking him, his head hits the cabinet, he sucks in a breath, she stops. “You’re a freak. A little freaky child. That’s why we don’t want you here-”

“Then why did you take me in? Was it out of love for your sister? But then why do you treat me like this? I know you didn’t always hate magic-” She slaps him, it’s a white hot pain on his cheek that dulls into a driving sting.

But she moves back, staggers back, like she’s the one who's been slapped. She’s staring at him in horror.

“How do you know-”

He moves closer to her, she stands back against the wall, clutching at it like he’s a giant spider stalking towards her, pincers clicking.

“Just answer the goddamn question, Petunia, why do you hate me?”

She’s gaping and gaping at him. He leans forward, wondering what she’s going to say, what his own mind, his own soul, will come up with.

After a few seconds of this, she just stops all at once, stops gaping, stops huffing and keening, stops pushing into the wall. She now crosses her arms, leans back casually. “Oh come now. You know already.”

He just tilts his head.

She sighs. “It’s not that I hate you. I’m frightened of magic and what it did to my family. No, what you’re really looking for here-” She pauses.

Harry steps closer, she stares down at him, a sad and mean little smile in place. “Is confirmation that I don’t love you. You know I don’t, you silly boy. It’s not that I’ve never felt any stirrings of affection, but they all snuffed out before anything could happen with them. I didn’t want to care about you and so I didn’t. You’ve known this a long time, I don’t know why you look so hurt now.”

And it does hurt, still, after all these years. “But why? Why couldn’t you?”

She rolls her eyes, then stares down at him again, her eyes a pale, pale blue. “Come now, be a little kinder to yourself. Do you really think it was your failing rather than mine that made it so?”

He sits with that for a minute, all those old desperations sitting like weathered grapes on a dead vine. They finally fall off.

“Oh. Right. Just - Just bad luck for me then. Nothing - nothing I could have done?”

She nods, a stilted affirmation. He knows that this is a good thing, ultimately, but somehow it burns, it feels so unfair, and he’s not satisfied. But then, while she’s nodding, her face changes, she grows taller, long white hairs sprout from her hair, from her chin, her cheeks, and she’s not her anymore.

She’s Dumbledore now. Dumbledore who’s looking down at him solemnly.

They’re at Hogwarts. He’s still very small, but rather taller than he was a few seconds ago.

He lets out a long breath, steps back and back, then turns, faces the Hogwarts grounds, steps through the doors of the entryway, turning his back to Dumbledore.

_I just need a break. That’s all. I’m just tired. I need to sit for a second, just sit and hang out in myself for a second, that’s all._

He sits by the edge of the lake, the sun low, the air cool. He rests his head against his arms that are placed on his knees.

_What if all of these things I’m seeing are that cycle that Hermione warned me about?_

_That was awful. This is all awful. It certainly doesn’t feel cyclical. This feels - feels-_

_Hard._

He sits and sits, the sun never getting lower. He starts to shiver a little in the cool air.

He turns, just a little, apprehensive, and stares at Dumbledore who’s standing back in the doorway in robes of bright blue. From a distance, shrouded in the darkness of the dying light, it’s shadows whole and complete where he stands, he looks like a ghost.

_He is a ghost._

Harry shivers, rubs his hands along his arms.

_Yes, I suppose he is._

Harry looks back at him, shakes his head, looks back out towards the lake, the dark water’s surface shimmering, almost blinding, the rays of light bouncing off it’s tiny crests, its small movements, the water never quite still.

_I should go talk to him._

He feels so tired though, really doesn’t want to. He stands with great reluctance, he turns back, trudges to the doorway, looking carefully down at his own feet. When he glances up, he sees that Dumbledore is staring, still, solemnly down at him.

He swallows nervously.

They’re at Hogwarts, the paintings are indistinct, too dark, the torches not yet lit. They are just moving shadows, the smallest of whispers behind Dumbledore. He’s still very small, but it does feel a little better than how small he was at the Dursleys'.

He lets out a long breath, steps back and back, then turns, faces the Hogwarts grounds, steps through the doors of the entryway, turning his back to Dumbledore.

_I just need a break. That’s all. I’m just tired. I need to sit for a second, just sit and hang out in myself for a second, that’s all._

He sits by the edge of the lake, the sun low, the air cool. He rests his head against his arms that are placed on his knees.

_What if all of these things I’m seeing are that cycle that Hermione warned me about?_

_That was awful. This is all awful. It certainly doesn’t feel cyclical. This feels - feels-_

_Hard._

He sits and sits, the sun never getting lower. He starts to shiver a little in the cool air.

He turns, just a little, apprehensive, and stares at Dumbledore who’s standing back in the doorway in robes of bright blue. From a distance, shrouded in the darkness of the dying light, it’s shadows whole and complete where he stands, he looks like a ghost.

_He is a ghost._

Harry shivers, rubs his hands along his arms.

_Yes, I suppose he is._

Harry looks back at him, shakes his head, looks back out towards the lake, the dark water’s surface shimmering, almost blinding, the rays of light bouncing off it’s tiny crests, its small movements, the water never quite still.

_I should go talk to him._

He feels so tired though, really doesn’t want to. He stands with great reluctance, he turns back, trudges to the doorway, looking carefully down at his own feet. When he glances up, he sees that Dumbledore is starting, still, solemnly down at him.

He swallows.

They’re at Hogwarts, the paintings are shadows. He’s still very small.

He lets out a long breath, turns his back to Dumbledore.

_I just need a break. That’s all. I’m just tired._

He sits by the edge of the lake, the sun low, the air cool.

_What if all of these things I’m seeing are that cycle that Hermione warned me about?_

He sits and sits, the sun never getting lower.

He turns, just a little, apprehensive, and stares at Dumbledore.

_He is a ghost._

Harry shivers, rubs his hands along his arms.

_Yes, I suppose he is._

Harry looks back at him, shakes his head.

_I should go talk to him._

He feels so tired though, really doesn’t want to. He trudges to the doorway. Dumbledore is staring, still, solemnly down at him.

He swallows.

They’re at Hogwarts.

He turns his back to Dumbledore.

_I just need a break._

He sits by the edge of the lake.

_What is that cycle that Hermione warned me about?_

He turns, just a little, apprehensive, and stares at Dumbledore.

_He is a ghost._

_I should go talk to him._

He trudges to the doorway. Dumbledore is staring solemnly.

Swallows.

Hogwarts.

Turns his back to Dumbledore.

Sits by the edge of the lake.

_Cycle that Hermione warned me about?_

Turns, stares at Dumbledore.

_Ghost._

_Talk to him._

Trudges to the doorway. Dumbledore is solemn.

Swallows.

Hogwarts.

Dumbledore.

Lake.

Cycle.

Ghost.

Talk.

Trudge.

Solemn.

Swallows.  
Hogwarts.  
Dumbledore.  
Lake.  
Cycle.  
Ghost.  
Talk.  
Trudge.  
Solemn.

_Swallows._   
_Hogwarts._   
_Dumbledore._   
_Lake._   
_Cycle._   
_Ghost._   
_Talk._   
_Trudge._   
_Solemn._

~~Swallows.~~   
~~Hogwarts.~~   
~~Dumbledore.~~   
~~Lake.~~   
~~Cycle.~~   
~~Ghost.~~   
~~Talk.~~   
~~Trudge~~   
~~Solemn.~~

**Harry? Harry? Please. Please.**

Hermione? Hermione? Cycle? Hermione. Hermione.

Cycle? Cycle?

Cycle.

Harry stands, shaking in the dying light.

“Shit. Bullocks. Fuck.”

He walks over to Dumbledore, who stares down at him solemnly.

“Sorry sir, what is it you wanted to talk to me about?”

He doesn’t know how long he’s been here. It doesn’t matter anymore. He just knows he needs to move on now.

Dumbledore’s eyes crinkle a little at the corners. Harry’s heart hurts, he wishes he wasn’t a ghost.

“Oh no, Mr. Potter. It’s not me that needs to say something to you. It’s you that needs to say something to me. Please, go ahead.”

He stares up at him. He fights the urge to turn and leave. He doesn’t want to do this.

His voice tears out, painful, a wound, blood splatter in the form of words.

“How could you? How could you do that to me? I trusted you so much, I loved you. How could you?” He’s bunches the front of Dumbledore’s robes in his fists. He’s trying to shake him, but he’s not very big and Dumbledore is Dumbledore. He stands fast.

“Ah. It hurt me immensely. I did not expect to love you as I did. But the world is much larger than your or I’s pain. If I could have, I would have switched with you in a heartbeat. I started to envy your mother. But that is not the world we live in, the plan had to continue. But, please, Harry, that is not what you wanted to say to me, I know it.”

Harry sinks to his knees still gripping the front of Dumbledore’s robes. Dumbledore does not bend, the robes do not tear, it’s Harry’s hands that slide. “I’m so sorry. I’m sorry I don’t want to die. I want to stay with Hermione. I want to have a family. I want to be free. I want to be loved, and love people. I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry I can’t do it, I can’t. I can’t, I can’t. Not even for the whole wizarding world. Please tell me that’s okay. I just want you to tell me that’s okay.”

“I don’t think this adventure to remove Voldemort’s soul will be successful. I think that in order to reduce broader suffering, you and your friends must destroy all the Horcruxes as quickly as possible and you must go and face Voldemort, and he must kill you and a part of himself. He will be unstable, wildly weakened, and can be killed easily by another witch or wizard at that point. That’s what I think.”

Harry stares up at Dumbledore’s sad face and feels as though he’s been stabbed in the heart. Dumbledore leans down now, as unnatural looking as a tree bowing without wind.

“But that’s the thing, Mr. Potter. It is the job of the youth to disregard the thoughts of the old, to risk, to try something new. It is the job of those transitioning from childhood to adulthood to seek their own path, regardless of approval.”

Harry’s heart is bleeding, his throat burns. All that anger, all that pain rolls and rolls in him. “You are an old man.”

“I am.”

“So be dead then.”

Dumbledore stands straight, watches as Harry gets to his feet.

He puts his shaking hands deep in the pockets of his robes. His voice is even, clear, steady. “You aren’t even a ghost.”

And then he’s gone, nothing where he once stood, not even a shadow or whisper.

He blinks, and then turns. There’s snow outside. He looks down. He’s taller than he was just a few seconds ago.

Not knowing where else to go, he climbs the stairs to the Gryffindor common room, grimacing to himself.

_Can’t wait to see what fresh hell is next._


	19. In my mind's eye

Harry climbs the stairs, feeling as though he has aged one hundred years.

And still, even with this apparent passage of time, seeing Cedric standing in the corridor still stings, the pain vibrates up and down his limbs. He feels tired, weariness in every particle of his body, some part of him wonders what would happen to him if he tried to sleep, he thinks of spending the rest of his life in an unconscious loop and shudders.

He sets his face. He’s dealt with worse.

Striding forward, he stops in front of Cedric, looks up into his passive face, his bright gray eyes gleaming with a spirit that had left them the last time he saw them.

“Alright, give it a go then. What is it this time? I can’t have that first vision because most of them are dead, my family never loved me, and my mentor doesn’t think I should live. What have you got? You’re going to blame me for your death, mate? Just say it, let’s be done.”

Cedric lets out a breath, shakes his head. “That’s what you took from that? All those things you saw, all those conversations? That’s really what you took away? Never mind, back to the topic at hand. We both know that you don’t feel guilty for my death, Harry. Nor should you, nor do I want you to. You didn’t want me to die, you didn’t plan it, you had no part, were a victim of a crime just the same as me, though a different one than mine. No. Let’s instead think of what you do feel towards me, what do you think of when you think of me?”

_Were you always so bloody tall?_

_I was so jealous of you._

_I think of your mother’s calmness, her eyes as she looked at me, rejecting the money, empty, everything wrung out of her, her grief complete. I think of your father's yells, his crying, an endless well of pain, and still I feel jealous, because they knew you, and when I hear my own mother’s yells, it’s all I know of her, and my grief is empty._

_You took Cho to the ball, you bastard._

_The school supported you. They wore badges that said that I stink. Why is my life always like that? You, tall and handsome, of age ready and willing and prepared to compete, your parents so proud, your friends so happy for you. And all that jealousy I feel didn’t melt away just because you died, and that makes me feel, just -_

“I think I’m a loser, next to you. I tried not to, I had a lot going on, I didn’t dedicate a lot of time to it, but still, it-it’s mostly what I think of, when I think of you alive.”

Cedric hums, stares down the corridor. “Poor Ron.”

Harry’s eyebrows raise. “What?”

He shrugs, turning away, walking slowly. “It’s just that jealousy is an ugly emotion, not a flattering one to the person feeling it, but yet it burns and burns and leaves a mark, an ugliness, doesn’t it? After all, you watched me die, and still it’s what you think of. Poor Ron, is all.” Cedric moves slowly down the corridor, walking backward as he speaks. “Just something to consider.” He turns on his heel, walks in a quick pace up to a corner, and leaves without a word.

Harry sighs, rubbing his hands across his face. “Huh.”

Ron. Ron. He misses Ron, his humour, his various laughs, somehow taking something hard and serious and making it easy, nothing at all. He still feels irritated with him, with his sneering face made grotesque before he spins away in the fire. But something of the disgust he feels sort of fizzles away. He knows jealousy isn’t rational.

Harry turns, climbs more stairs, till he reaches the common room. It’s empty. Somehow that makes him nervous. He sits on the sofa in front of the fire, keeps glancing around the room, but no other shawdow-y figures from his past emerge. He finds himself relaxing into the cushions a little. He doesn’t want to sleep, so he picks up a book that’s on the table next to him. The title says something about quidditch, he thinks, and he flips open the book. He feels like he’s reading, feels engaged, but doesn’t think he’s actually taking in any words.

_Can you read in your dreams?_

_Maybe if you have a photographic memory. Which, frankly, you do not._

He snorts, flips the book closed, and starts at the face staring out at him from the fire.

Sirius.

Harry stands, moves back, Sirius’ eyes follow him. He doesn’t want to do this. He doesn’t want to do this.

_Please don’t make me do this._

Harry sits in front of the flames. He knows what happens if he runs.

Sirius smiles at him, his gray eyes haunted, still, even in his own mind’s vision of him.

_I wish I could make you happier, even if it’s just here._

“You know, Harry, I’m really sorry I compared you to James so much.”

Harry lets out a shaky breath. “It’s alright, kind of expected. We even look alike-”

“You don’t really.”

Harry rests his head on his palms, his elbow on his knees. He finds himself enjoying this, all at once.

“How do you mean? Everyone says so.”

Sirius’ eyes crinkle at the corner and Harry finds himself smiling unthinkingly.

“I mean of course you’re like a little carbon copy physically. But everything else is so different. The way you hold yourself, the expressions you make, the things that make you happy.”

“I’m sorry I wasn’t more like him.”

Sirius’s eyes dampen. “Don’t ever apologise for being yourself, Harry. You’re wonderful, all those differences aren’t deficiencies, they are just that, differences. I really wanted to do better by you.”

“You were wonderful Sirius. I never felt-” Harry feels his throat close.

“You’ve never felt like you had your own people before, outside of Ron and Hermione, who love you, but they are your peers, and they can’t guide you.”

Harry nods, trying to keep it together.

“We could spend as long as we want here together, but it will eventually turn into a loop. So, be the brave young man I know you to be, look me in the eye, and tell me those words burning now in your throat.”

Harry shakes his head. He won’t be able to get it out without crying.

“Don’t fight it. It has to happen at some point anyway.”

He nods, sucks in a breath. “Do you think, if I was more like my father, I would have been able to save you?”

He already knows the answer, doesn’t even know why he’s asked, he feels embarrassed, like he’s a small child, he didn’t even know that those thoughts had been lingering there.

“No, in fact, it’s much more likely that everyone would have died. James would have run off at once, heeding no advice, and would have only brought Remus and Peter. You waited and listened to friends and trusted more.”

Harry nods, tries to say something, but he’s all gasps and repressed sobs.

“It’s alright. Let it out. I’m only sorry, so sorry, that I can’t stay to comfort you.”

With one last long look of sadness, Sirius leaves, the flames empty, burning and waving over blackened logs.

He bends forward, presses his head the sooty rug, and sobs. He heaves great waves of pain, shivers with tears, chokes and moans against the agony sitting pure in his stomach.

And he finally lets it all out, as he needed to months ago.

Eventually, long after he wished he’d stop, the seemingly endless pool of grief dries, however temporarily, and he sits up straight.

He wipes his inflamed eyes with the heels of his hands, finds a tissue on a side table and blows his nose. “Blimey.”

It feels a bit like throwing up. Now that it’s over, he does feel better, lighter, somehow. He misses Hermione. She would give him the softest of hugs right now, he knows. He feels a little stupid because he could have done this a long time ago, and she would have been there, then.

Still, he knows that she’s outside of him now, holding his hand, and he stares down at his empty one with a small smile.

“Let’s get this over with. Where in the bleeding hell is Voldemort’s grimy soul?”

He looks around the common room as though expecting to see a sign post, it’s finger pointing into a closet or stairwell, with the words, “Bit of Voldemort’s Soul,” carved into it or something.

He starts swinging open doors, climbing stair cases, but there isn’t anything obvious.

He feels the beginnings of worries, wonders if he’s mucked it up somehow and is in a loop of some kind.

But then, there, glowing and silver on his bed, is a pensive.

“Merlin.”

He’d almost rather go see Dumbledore again.

Sighing, he peers into it, looking at all the glowing memories there.

Before he could think too long about it, worry that it might be any number of terrible things he could be revisiting, he dips his face forward.

And he’s watching Ron, Hermione, and him, tiny, tinier than he remembers ever being, even though he was just that small only a short time ago, sit on the floor of the common room. Ron’s explaining the rules exploding snap to them. Hermione’s staring at him like he’s a professor. Harry’s played it before, but it still doesn’t make sense, and he’s closely listening.

“And then, sometimes the cards explode. When that happens, you have to-”

“I’m sorry.” Hermione’s voice still has that pitch to it, a condescending sort of incredulity. Ron’s face scrunches. Hermione clears her throat a little, her tone much more even, more openly curious now. “The cards explode? How do you mean?”

Ron no longer looks annoyed, but instead confused. “What do you mean, how do I mean?”

“How do you mean the cards explode? Like in a ball of fire? It is dangerous?”

He’s face smooths out. “Oh. No. That wouldn’t be fun. No, they just make a loud pop, you know, and then sort of turn into smoke and ash in your hands.”

“Oh yes, that sounds much more fun.”

Ron nods in agreement, missing Hermione’s sarcasm completely. “It is pretty fun. Adds a bit of worry to the game. Otherwise it would be too straight forward, see?”

Her face softens, and she smiles at Ron. “You know, I think I do.”

Little Harry smiles at them both, and older Harry grins at them all.

The memory shifts. It’s them later in the year, looking through books half the size of themselves.

“Why? Why is this man so hard to find?” Hermione keeps muttering to herself. Ron’s staring, barley blinking at the wall in front of him, completely checked out. Harry is listlessly flipping through a book, his cheek in his hand.

He gets an idea, Harry can read it clearly on his little transparent face. He can’t seem to get over how small he was. How small they all were. He keeps thinking about how in a few months he’ll run into Voldemort for the second some time. It seems absurd.

His little self hesitates, and Harry remembers this specific memory now. He was so worried that he’d offend Ron, wasn’t sure if this was a thing friends could do, but still, he wanted to try.

He makes a loud gasping noise, Hermione and Ron turn to look at him, eyebrows raised. Harry points at Ron’s shoulder. “Mate, there, you have a giant spider on you.”

Ron pales, then turns bright pink. “Get it off. Get it off, GET IT OFF!” He spinning, trying to look at his own shoulder, Hermione’s ducking and standing on her toes, “Where, where is it? I don’t see it?”

Harry laughs, taking Ron by the shoulders. “Sorry, sorry, there wasn’t one.”

Ron stops in his tracks. Hermione huffs, crosses her arms over her chest.

“You git.” Ron throws his arm over his shoulders, starts rubbing his head with his knuckles.

Harry snorts, laughing, but also wincing, shoving at him, “Get off me, what are you the spider now? Get off me.”

They struggle for a second more before Madam Pince is looming above them, barking for them to get out.

They stumble into the hallway, all of them laughing, even Hermione, and Harry feels good, his smile beaming down the hallway.

The memory changes again. It’s the three of them in the Moaning Myrtle’s bathroom. Ron accidentally dropped a vial of something, and they all watch it roll away, down into a rather large pipe opening. “Opps.”

Ron looks down at Hermione, nervous. Hermione looks up at him sharply, “Great going Ron, that was the Boomslang Skin. We’ll have to steal from Snape again.”  
  


Ron’s mouth is gaping. He makes a choking sound. Harry moves away from the wall, strides over to the pipe to look down into it. There’s nothing there at all. He turns to look at Ron, he’s eyes blazing.

Hermione starts to giggle. Both of them stare at her, aghast. “No it wasn’t, don’t worry, it was just a bit of olive grass. Very easy to get.”

Ron starts laughing in relief, Harry starts laughing at Ron, and Hermione laughs at them both.

And so it goes. Flashes of things, conversations in the common room, Ron and Harry running up behind Hermione and throwing a bunch of snow in her hair, spells gone wrong in the best way, slow evenings by the lake, quidditch practice in the sun, the fresh spring air the best thing he’s ever felt. One is just him eating a particularly good treacle tart, his face is gluttonous bliss.

Neville and Dean telling him a story about something, Seamus chiming in with ridiculous details, derailing the whole thing, Ginny letting out a sharp joke just as Alicia was going to catch the quaffle, making her miss so that it hits Harper in the face, but all of them are too busy laughing to care, Luna waltzing down the hallway, spinning Harry into her arms for just a couple of steps before she’s on her way, Mrs. Weasley calling them in for supper, Fred and George giving him a wink as they walk into a hidden passage, up to something.

And by the time he is leaning over the pensive again, his cheeks hurt from smiling, and he almost forgets that anything bad has ever happened to him.

Hermione is sitting cross legged by the head board, a pleased look on her face.

“Don’t you see, Harry? How wrong it is? What a lie it is, that your life would ever be worth sacrificing for a man like Voldemort?”

He does see, sees better than he has in a long time. He’s happy to see her, moves towards her, but his knees give out weirdly, and his head hits the side of his mattress and for a second he can’t see, and then he feels grass beneath him, the mattress turns to a cloth covered arm, the smell of the fabric reminds him of something, something he almost remembers.

He looks up and it’s his mum leaning over him. His dad is leaning over her shoulder, Hermione is by his side, Ron on the other. He can hear Mr. and Mrs. Weasley somewhere in the background.

He’s back in the garden.

He swallows thickly.

_The mind works in cycles._

“What do you mean he drank a mysterious potion?”

“Ronald Weasley, you are grounded for life, until you are old and gray, you -”

“Is any of the potion left? We need to get it right away. Also, Accio bezoar.”

Harry coughs, moves to stand, but all these hands hold him fast. “No. No. I’m fine. It was just a strange moment.”

“Harry dear, open your mouth now, this is going to be a bit rough to swallow-”

“Mum, I’m fine, I swear.” He snaps it out, pulls away from everyone, and now everyone is standing.

His mum is looking him over with worry in every line of her face, but there’s something clinical in her eye, something assessing. He wonders if she’s a healer. He can picture that. He has, apparently, since this is all in his head.

He glances over to his dad, who looks a touch more frantic still, his hazel eyes bouncing between his, his brow furrowed.

_I’ve spoken to my mum. I’ve really spoken to her. She’s no longer trying to shove a bezoar in my face. She looks just like a mum should. Dad, Dad’s looking right at me._

_No they aren’t, this isn’t real. This isn’t-_

_Who cares? Who cares if it isn’t? So what if it turns into a loop, who gives a shit, what a wonderful loop, all except that Hermione’s dating Ron, but I can fix that, I’ll duel him or something-_

_Ah yes, Hermione would definitely be won over by duels for her love, like she’s a trophy-_

_Whatever, I’ll figure it out, everything else is perfect, it’s-_

“Let’s stand back then, come sit Harry, tell us what happened.”

They usher him over to the table. Remus and Sirius are standing with Dumbledore at the other end of the table, all concerned looking, Mrs. Weasley and his Mum are looking at what’s left of the potion. His Dad and Mr. Weasley are talking in stern tones to Ron, whose ears are bright red.

“Why-Harry, this is just a calming draught with some citrus in it. The citrus would just make it less potent. What happened?” His mum is staring at him. His mum, his mum, her voice calm, sure, orderly.

He laughs or cries, he’s not entirely sure. He covers his face with his hands. “A lot. A lot has happened. Mum. Dad. I love you. I love just even the idea of you, so, so much.” He uncovers his face, looks at them both, takes in their concerned looks like a diver taking one long deep breath.

He turns to Sirius, Dumbledore, and Remus. “I’m sorry Sirius. I miss you. Dumbledore, I don’t know what I feel, but I know it’s not all one way, and Remus, I want to get to know you better, if you’d let me. All the Weasleys, I love you all too, and want, want to be better for you all as well. Especially you, Ron.”

He stands back up, and they are staring in silence as he walks over to Hermione. “And as much as this is really for me, for the real life that I want to live, know that a little part of this, more than a little, is also for you, who I love most of all.”

He doesn’t kiss her, because she looks completely thrown, her face bright, bright red.

But he gives her a wink, then walks to the garden gate. He opens it, glances back at their stunned faces, and without lingering for too long, closes it with a click.

He feels sad and happy and free, like a real person should.

He steps off the pavement into the road. A car swings wide and hits him.

It feels like all his bones have been shattered, like he’s a teacup smashed to the ground.

Blinking blood out of his eye, he sits up slowly, pain rolling through him.

He’s in a graveyard, a joyless manor house close by.

Harry hisses, somehow standing.

Here he is, then.

Voldemort’s soul.


	20. The stroke of death is as a lover's pinch, which hurts and is desired.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Right. This gets...dark. Just a heads up.

He stands still in the graveyard. The night is chill but not freezing. There are leaves in shades of yellow and red some distance away. It’s autumn, wherever this bit of Voldemort’s soul is.

The pain in him shifts from the feeling of a million little bone fractures to feeling like his muscles are tearing, shredding, grinding together and then pulling apart. Just as he thinks he might scream the pain dulls, the relief of its absence is a kind of endorphin all on its own, only for the pain to slowly build again.

He looks around to the headstones in front of him, looks up to the dark house, only one light shining up on the hill, turns more, shouts to see Voldemort behind him, the hood of his dark black robe pulled over his face, only his red eyes gleaming.

And Harry can feel his feelings, the energy thrumming through him, the sense of righteous purpose, the thrill of expected murder.

He wants to throw up, but there’s nothing to throw up, and so the nausea joins the hellish course of building and collapsing pain in him, a twisted harmony.

Voldemort takes a bizarrely affectionate look up at the manor, then turns, and the next thing He sees is Voldemort’s quick stride as he makes his way down an ordinary looking muggle street.

There are children in costumes everywhere. One says something to Voldemort and Harry can feel it, the urge, the pull, to murder him, disappear him, leave the boy’s mother wandering in a life of sad confusion, dashed hopes, endless loss. But he has to refocus, he instead thinks of the task at hand, and considers that a sign of his iron will, rather than a sign of his fraying grasp on anything human at all.

Harry shivers, watches the boy reunite with his mother with relief. The pain in his muscles is migrating now, to a thousand little cuts all over his skin. He hisses, his breath leaving low and long between his teeth.

The pain fades, only to build again.

Harry watches as Voldemort pauses in front of a house. He can feel his amusement, his ease, at whatever he sees. He thinks this will be an easy task.

He distracts himself from another swell of pain, gritting his teeth. He wonders what he’s even doing. What does an evil wizard do on Halloween? Kick puppies? Brew a potion to suck the lives out of little child-

Children-

A realisation is dawning, rolling through him worse than any of the pain he’s felt since being here and it does not relent.

“No. No. NO. NO. NO. Why? Why?”

He watches Voldemort glide up the walkway, grace in his long steps.

He races after him, pushes past the remains of the door Voldemort blew in a second before.

Just in time to see his father murdered.

He can’t look away from James’ crumpled form, his wandless hands, his blank hazel eyes.

There is a swell of pain.

He hears his mother’s pleading voice, distant but somehow more clear than when the dementors are near.

He thinks this might be it.

This might be the thing that breaks him.

But he doesn’t break, no matter how long he stares at his father’s corpse, no matter how much he’d like to crumple away into nothing.

Instead, there a lot of shouting, screaming, keening wailing, a fire starts, he can smell the smoke, and Harry can feel it, still, somehow, even through the chaos in his own mind, that Voldemort is scared, terrified, he needs to flee, needs to leave, so that he can understand.

And then he’s back in the graveyard. He turns to look at Voldemort’s confident face, feels the glee he feels at the idea of upcoming violence, blood spilled by the power, the sheer power of his own magic, and it is just as deeply foreign to Harry as it was the first time he felt it minutes ago. The nausea rises just as his bones feel like they are filled with tiny fractions.

His Horcruxes are loops. Because of course they are.

Harry is filled with a profound hate. Something primal that echoes the emotion of Voldemort’s blood-lust, but gives it depth, meaning, something denser than the shallow elation of a coward enjoying his false power. With a yell, he reaches his hands out, presses them artlessly to Voldemort’s face, no clear intent in mind outside of the rage of what the man did to him, what he took away before he even knew what he lost.

He may not know them anymore, but he knows they loved him, and he loves them, easy and natural as breathing. And this stain on humanity, less than the dirt underneath their feet, which can at least help grow grass, less than the clothes they wear, which keep them comfortable, less than anything in existence, and far, far less than a human, can fucking die instead.

Voldemort screams, and Harry can feel his pain, feels the flesh boil under his hands, the bones crumple, collapsing inward, and then it all burns, and everything is ash, and Harry can feel it, all of it, and then there is nothing, nothing at all, just a deep and abiding chill, and coldness that grows in intensity, the photo negative of an inferno.

But then the muggle street is full of children, and he sees Voldemort’s long even strides, as though he’s gliding, only pausing for a second as the child speaks to him.

“No. No.” He whispers it. He follows until his parent’s front gate. He stares blankly, not even really taking in how his skin hurts, as though sliced open with a thousand tiny cuts. He watches one green light, then the other, through the windows, and can only shake and shake, crossing his arms over his chest like he’s in a snow storm.

He can feel Voldemort’s terror, his desire to retreat. Then there is a raging coldness, a deep absence, but they don’t end up back in the graveyard again. He watches Voldemort stride up the street. Doesn’t move to follow him. In the distance he can see two flashes of green light, he can still feel his terror. There is a deep coldness.

And then he’s watching him stride up the street.

Harry ignores the way that it feels like his muscles are pulling apart, his mind thinking about something else, something other than his parents.

_Did I get rid of a bit of his soul? Is that why the loop is shorter?_

Maybe he can take care of this right now.

He watches Voldemort stride up the street. He runs in front of him as he pauses to look at the frightened child. He presses his hands to Voldemort’s face, but nothing happens. He can not feel him, and he moves forward.

Harry can’t touch him.

He stands outside, grimacing as his parent’s shout their last words. He winces against the cold. He watches Voldemort stride up the street.

He can’t do this again. He can’t be stuck in this loop, this endless nightmare, forever.

But deep fear, desperation, doesn’t stop Voldemort either.

He still can’t touch him.

He grimaces, winces, and watches.

Grimaces, winces, and watches.

Grimace. Wince. Watch.

“No. No. I refuse. I refuse. This isn’t the rest of my life now. This isn’t it.”

He walks alongside Voldemort, his heart hammering, pain swelling and breaking, he watches Voldemort kill his father, can’t bring himself to follow him upstairs.

_This isn’t it. This isn’t everything._

_You learned, remember?_

_There were a lot of things outside of this. You laughed with your friends. You learned to joke with them. You flew through fresh spring air, you ate food that made you smile, there was a bird outside of your window one morning, resting in the ledge against heavy wind, and you looked at it and wished it well, and it looked at you, and you can’t be sure, but you think it was wishing you well too. Once you sneezed while saying a spell and turned your own hair lime green, and the whole class laughed but it wasn’t mean, they were just happy something silly happened, and you were happy they were happy. Ron would sling his arm over your shoulder, Hermione would take your hand. They love you and you love them. They were enough. It was enough._

_Your life was enough._

Not with rage, but a strange sadness, uncertainty and pain wearing him down, he raises his shaking hands up to Voldemort’s face as he pauses to look at the child.

His skin doesn’t boil, his bones don’t collapse. Instead his fingers, his palm sinks in like heat through ice, a hot knife through butter. Voldemort is clay, dead earth, too lumpy and sick to even make a pot. He oozes away.

And there is a deep coldness. A darkness so black as to make the concept of sight foreign. Harry thinks of deep space. It isn’t anything at all. All nothing.

And then he’s standing in his parent’s living room, watching as Voldemort kills his father and then climbs the narrow flight of stairs.

There are shouts, he can feel Voldemort’s terror, and then there is nothing, an icy absence that sits deeper in his bones than any pain.

And Harry can feel his own terror.

Because he will be stuck here, after he is done destroying this bit of soul.

He looks around the living room as Voldemort climbs the stairs. He can’t find a mirror, but there is a dark obsidian rock on the mantle, he’s not sure why.

He looks at his reflection in it.

He looks different, now. Older, ancient. His face is pale and warped in the reflective rock.

He wants to leave. He wants to live.

He had spent all that time wandering through his soul, coming to an understanding on how much he wants to live. He thought it had been hard, that that was pain, all that rejection, but it wasn’t. He can see that now. His family didn’t love him, but he knew that because in his heart of hearts he remembered his parent’s love, and Dumbledore thought that Harry should sacrifice himself, but he was in agony because he loved him as well, just not enough. He learned that he and Ron aren’t so different, that Sirius was a good godfather, and he misses him, that he had more than enough in the real world so that no pretty loop could tempt him.

Despite all the sadness and hard choices, the roughness of his life, every panel of it was colored with love.

God, he misses Hermione.

He doesn’t want to die.

There is a long period of that horrible nothingness.

He watches Voldemort kill his father.

Before he can turn to talk up the stairs Harry places his hands on Voldemort’s face, carefully, as though Harry is fragile, and moving quickly will shatter him. But it’s not him that shatters. It’s Voldemort. He shatters like he's a hollow figurine. Because he is.

And then there is a long period of nothing, absence that sucks everything from him. Not just nothing, but the opposite of being.

Harry shivers as he watches Voldemort climb the stairs. He follows.

He doesn’t cry as Voldemort shouts for his mother to move aside. He’s eyes are dry as he watches her fall to the floor. He thinks this might be it then, the thing that breaks him.

But he just won’t break, no matter how much it feels like he should, no matter that it seems like that should be the end of the world. It isn’t. Instead, he watches in curiosity as Voldemort points his wand at the little boy’s head, the little boy who would grow up to be this ghost, chipping away at the very man's soul that he is so frightened of seeing now.

He and the little boy aren’t really all that different from each other, really. They are both so scared.

There is a flash of blinding light, hot, filled with something, it might be the opposite, the entire opposite, of the nothingness that he descends into, right after.

But he remembers that warm flash of light, filled with something. He carries it in his mind, even when all that absence pulls and pulls at him.

And then he’s watching Voldemort climb stairs and follows. He looks away at the flash of green light. He ignores his own small wailing. He stares, doesn’t blink, as the room fills with bright light, warm, a carcass against his skin, filled with something, something he recognises, that he knows, learned more about while wandering through his own soul.

The long darkness makes him bitter. He wants to live so bad. There are so many things he wants.

He wants to go find Ron and yell at him. Feelings don’t seem so hard now. He wants Ron to yell back, scream out his feelings until his ears are red. He wants them to yell and fight and understand. He wants to hug him, he’s already forgiven him ages ago. He knows Ron forgives him too. He just needs to yell a little. It hardly matters, in the spectrum of things. It all seems so silly now.

He wants to write to Remus and Tonks.

He wants to hug Mrs. Weasley. Thank her for just being her. A mother. A warm person who takes another and puts them at her table, feeds them, gives them a home. He thinks of the Weasley’s orchard. He can see the sunlight streaming through the trees, hear Fred and George laughing about something up ahead, Ron and Hermione bickering next to him, Ginny is a flash in the corner of his eye as she weaves through the trees on her broom. Mrs. Weasley shouts that Mr. Weasley is home and to come to supper. He can feel her warmth from here, still even in this darkness.

He wants to make a joke and have his friends laugh. He isn’t all brooding doom and gloom all the time. He thinks he wouldn’t have been at all if there hadn’t been an evil wizard after him. He thinks maybe it isn't all so serious, life. He enjoys watching he friend's faces lighten, their eyes squint, their mouths open wide to show the back of their mouths as their laughter fills the air. He wants to hear their snorts as he says something under his breath in class. He wants puns, sarcasm, jokes, perfectly timed swear words, that feeling when you throw your head back and laugh and it comes out load and true from your stomach. 

He wants to thank Luna for going to the party with him, for waltzing down the hallway, for believing him all on her own.

He wants to watch Ginny become a shooting star, a bright light soaring over everyone, flying above hoards of screaming fans.

He wants to visit Dumbledore’s grave. Talk about how he was wrong. That there is no such thing as the greater good. That good is an action, not a destination. That his life is worth it.

He wants to leave here and kiss Hermione, first on her mouth, then her forehead, her cheeks, her ears. He wants to rest his head against her hair and breathe deep, again and again.

It hurts that it’s not to be. But he knows now, that there is no way but forward, and that hell is in these endless loops.

He will break this thing that Voldemort would always be too much of a coward to face.

And he will remember love, even in all that pulling darkness, even when there is nothing of Voldemort left.

He watches Voldemort climb the stairs. He watches him yell at his mother to move aside. He watches as he casts her down with his wand.

He watches as he points his wand at the child’s head.

He steps forward just as the white light fills the room.

He places his hands on Voldemort’s face, staring into the frantic, confused eyes of the lowly slime, the grime of the earth, a disease of humanity, and feels pity for him. Because he will never feel all that white light, what it’s made of.

He will only have absence and nothing, nothing at all.

That is the death he chose, sealing his own fate by avoiding it.

And then Voldemort disintegrates, particles falling away from each other.

And for a second he feels it, the other parts of Voldemort’s soul screaming out in agony. They are always in agony, jagged and rotting chunks of what was only ever meant to be whole, but the loss of one of them pulls at them, they scream to be together, to go as one, but they can't, the are locked into their wrong bodies and he can see them; the locket, still on the coffee table, a small golden cup sitting among of stack of treasures, a coat of arms behind it on a wall in Gringotts, a small crown in the Room of Requirements, Nagini, circling and circling, in a dark room, Voldemort watching her with careful eyes.

And then there is nothing.

Almost nothing at all.

But three remain: faith, hope and love. And the greatest of these is love.

And that’s enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The last line is a slightly changed quote from the bible: And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love. Also the chapter titles are all Shakespeare.


	21. He that is thy friend indeed, He will help thee in thy need

She thought that she’d read her book, look into how to destroy horcruxes, maybe construct a letter to Ron about how he is being an arse, and how dare he run away right when they are the most lost and confused they’ve ever been. She hoped that Harry would wake up in a few hours, and they’d talk about if he saw anything helpful.

She didn’t think she'd spend the day living out her worst nightmare.

At first it wasn’t so bad. He started to gasp a little, his eyes moving fast under his eyelids.

She figured there were a number of unpleasant things he’d have to sort through. She didn’t envy him. She ran her fingers through his thick hair.

And he seemed to settle a little.

She had gotten towards the end of her book when she noticed that his eyes had stopped moving underneath his eyelids, that he looked rather pale.

She touched his cheek and it was surprisingly cool.

Closing her book, she leaned over him, listened to his breathing, touched the pulse in his neck.

It was all weak. She’d never seen him so pale.

She shakes him. Sends an Rennervate, which does nothing, she knows that it won’t. There is no spell to wake him from this potion, he just has to get through it.

But what does that even mean? What if the horcrux is a wall, makes it impossible for him to traverse through himself, and he simply dies from it?

What if she finishes Dumbledore and Voldmort’s aims before they even dreamt they could?

_I have always been an overachiever._

The thought is venom, acid, burning through her mind as she slides to the floor next to the sofa.

His breathing becomes fainter and fainter, his pulse weaker and weaker.

She can only stare in horror. She did this. This is all her fault. She will never forgive herself.

She slaps his chest, wails in a way that frightens her, she’s never made that noise before.

She remembers herself, starts to push down on his chest, breathes into his mouth for him. His breathing remains weak, almost nothing, his pulse is so slow as to throw her into panic in between each soft thump.

She tries again, again. Eventually she lies her head down and in the same voice she wailed in before, screams, “Harry? Harry? Please. Please.”

There is a beat, a slight pause, and then he sucks in a gulp of air.

She sobs in relief, watches his chest rise and fall evenly, holds her fingers to his throat to feel the steady beat. Underneath his eyelids his eyes move and move.

She doesn’t read or do anything else, she sits on the floor by the sofa and holds one hand to his chest and the other to his throat, and watches his face.

And what faces he makes.

Resignation lines his brow for a while, but then it shifts into something softer, then too soft, so that it looks fragile. And then he’s crying, keening sounds, half sobs, tears slides down and down his face. She takes a tissue and wipes them away.

And then, after a little while, he looks happy. First a soft grin, then a full one, genuine and wide, and it would be nice, wonderful even, if it wasn’t odd with his eyes closed, if Hermione couldn’t remember distinctly her anguish at his fading breath, his dying pulse, the residue of it still circulating in her veins, the fear of it’s renewal stinging in her throat.

Her legs went numb awhile ago. She thinks he looks content. She swears his eyes almost open, he looks like he’s about to say something, she sits up straighter, a smile at the corners of her mouth.

And then he gasps, a sound of surprise, of pain. His face shifts, he’s grimacing, his neck is tense, the sinew straining, but then he relaxes a little, though the grimace doesn’t leave.

It doesn’t leave the whole time, even as his breathing becomes shallower, even as his heartbeat weakens.

“No. No. Please.” She whispers it into his ear, but nothing changes.

She looks into her bag, pulls out a medical text, looks at spells to help breathing, to keep the heart beating. She tries them. Nothing happens.

He keeps his grimace, though he pales further.

Eventually the grimace falls, leaving behind a soft sadness, and the softness of it somehow makes it worse, makes it fit onto his face smoothly, so that’s all that’s there.

Complete sadness.

She lightly touches the outline of his face, feather touches along his eyebrows, down his nose. His breath is almost entirely gone.

She feels ancient, timeless. Many people have sat here before her, watching in devastation as someone slips away and they can’t do anything about it. But this is her first time, and she doesn’t know all of the feelings that are rising in her. They push up through her, out of her skin, bigger than her, a cloud around her. She isn’t crying. She finds herself humming, presses her forehead to his.

There is one last puff of air out. She waits for another but it doesn’t come. She realises she is humming the opening melody to Mozart’s Requiem. She used to think it dramatic, would roll her eyes when her dad would put in the tape of it as they were driving wherever.

But now it doesn’t seem dramatic enough, because Harry is still and empty below her.

She doesn’t understand why the world isn’t ending.

Seconds keep slipping away.

“Please.” She doesn’t recognise her own voice, doesn’t want to hear such a broken thing ever again.

And then there’s a deep gasp, horrible sounding, ragged, something out of a horror film, a ghost with a widening black maw standing in a mirror.

She sits up. It’s Harry. He does it again, followed by a longer, deeper breath, less painful sounding.

It’s the best thing she’s ever heard.

She puts shaking fingers back onto his neck. His pulse is racing.

She can only watch as Harry sits up, shaky and wincing. He leans against the arm of the sofa and blinks in the dim light of the room. She hadn’t noticed that night had fallen and now there’s only faint light coming from the low fire behind him.

“Am I dead?” He doesn’t look all together here.

She laughs, a bright sound of disbelief. “No. You’re here with me.”

He looks down at himself, glances around the room with a frown. “Are you dating Ron?”

“What? No.”

He’s staring at her with suspicion. “And I’m not dead?”

“Not. Not anymore. You were, for a while, I think.” Her voice wavers.

He moves his hand out, slowly, very slowly, to hers. His touch is feather light at first, and then he snatches her hand up quickly, as though it will fade away.

“This is the real world then, right? The one with Tom Riddle, and Ron’s gone off in a huff, and we kiss now, right?”

She scoots closer, watching his face closely. He keeps blinking at her, then around the room, then down at her hands.

And she doesn’t care, it doesn’t matter if he’s mental now, or anything else, because he’s breathing air right in front of her. His eyes are open, his pulse is still racing.

He’s alive.

“I love you.” She’s so relieved she feels light as a feather herself, that everything else is just noise now, and all the important things are here, and she can move weightlessly through the world.

His gaze stills now, looking her in the eye. And then he makes a face she’s never seen before, half of grief and pain, half of wonder. When he pulls her forward into a hug, she thinks he might be crying, but after a second, she realises he’s laughing. He’s laughing loud and clear, not hysterically, not calmly either. Just joy.

And when he pulls back to look at her, every line and panel of his face is lit up with it.

He stands, pulls her up too, pulls her into his arms, and holds her. He leans back, kisses her on the lips, on her forehead, her cheeks, her ears, her neck, where he rests his face and just seems to breathe deeply.

She holds him, her hands not able to rest, rubbing his back, fisting the sides of his shirt, squeezing lightly at the back of his neck.

He continues to breathe against her, and it’s the best thing in the world.

Sometime later, he pulls back a little, just staring down at her, all unashamed and soppy.

“What happened?”

For a second his face darkens, but then he seems to shrug it away. “A load of nonsense, really. The main thing to take away though is that it’s gone. The horcrux is gone.”

No part of her believes that what he went through was a load of nonsense, but she couldn’t think of a better distraction than that.

“Gone? What do you mean, gone?”

He pulls away, reaches down for the locket, and then pushes it right up against his scar.

He’s still grinning, no pain as the locket bounces lightly off of his forehead. There is no magnetic pull. She leans closer and sees that this scar is lighter, pinker, than it used to be.

She knew he hated it, but it was always sort of eye catching, the jaggedness of it, something angry about it, swelling still, even after all these years, not quite fresh, but not healed over either.

And now it’s almost nothing, barely even raised, barely even pink, fading into white on the edges. Just like a sixteen year old scar should be.

“Oh my god.” She starts laughing too, pulling him closer, so they are shaking together, in each other’s arms, and she touches his face, and they kiss for a while, for a long time, maybe forever.

* * *

Ron’s staring at Harry’s scar.

There are a lot of things that they still need to talk about, but for now, Ron is standing in the sitting room, looking down closely at Harry’s scar. Harry is looking back up at him, kind of annoyed, kind of amused.

“So. Just a regular scar now?” It’s the first thing he’s said to either of them since he has gotten here.

Hermione sent a patronus with instructions coded in a message for Ron to come to a meeting point. They hid under the invisibility cloak until he showed. They stayed hidden until he answered some questions confirming if it was really him. And then they brought him here.

At first Hermione sat down, but then Ron didn’t, and so Harry didn’t, and now they are standing, and Ron’s noticed the scar, right away.

“Yes, I scraped him out like an old wad of gum.”

“That easy, huh?” Ron’s face is still hard to read.

Harry shrugs, grinning. “Yeah, it wasn’t much.”

He’s been like that, these last week, he smiles easier, real smiles, and laughs more, and doesn’t seem bothered by small setbacks.

He’s just lighter, now.

“You nearly died twice. You did actually die once.” Her voice is exasperated and fond, like she’s come into the common room to find them frantically writing essays she finished weeks ago.

He takes a step back from Ron, smiles at her over his shoulder. “But look, still alive.” He puts his hands up and shakes them, as though he’s making some sort of point.

She rolls her eyes.

“And you two are dating now?”

Harry doesn’t stop grinning, but it does change shape, and sits more softly on his face. “Yeah.”

Hermione nods, watching Ron carefully.

Ron groans and lies back on the sofa like a tree being felled. He covers his face with his hands for a beat or two, then lets his arms fall to the side rather dramatically.

“I’m an idiot.”

Hermione makes a noise to disagree, but Harry snorts loudly over it. “Yeah, you are.”

Ron glares at him but Harry just flops next to him on the sofa, sitting in the middle, so that he’s looking down at Ron’s disgruntled face. “But you’re also a lot of other stuff, too.”

Ron considers, then nods, and sighing, looks up at the ceiling. “I want to help. You know, to make up for being an arse. Again.”

“So help. We still need to get the cup, the diadem and Nagini and destroy them. Not to mention, you know, the man himself.”

Ron squints at him. “Diadem?”

Harry nods, “Yeah, when I was kicking out the slimy git’s bit of soul, I saw the others. We knew about the Cup, but I saw that it’s in the Lestrange’s vault in Gringotts, or I guess I saw their crest and looked it up and put two and two together, the crown thing I saw is apparently Ravenclaw’s Diadem, which is in the Room of Requirements, and of we know Nagini is always with him, so that should be fun.”

Ron looks a little paler. “Right. Okay, so we’ll, what? Break into Gringotts, break into Hogwarts, which, by the way, is being run by Snape now-”

“What?” Both Harry and Hermione stand up.

“I know. The world, it’s, it’s gone rather bonkers, to say the least, while you two have been in here dealing with souls. They’re looking for you, you know? My parents hid me when the Ministry came to look for me, showing them the ghoul instead. I still can’t believe that worked, those idiots. But there are posters of you everywhere, Harry, Dad showed me some.”

Harry looks at her, and they share a frown, and she understands that he feels the same, that they have been rather preoccupied, and they didn’t know either, not really, how fast things moved.

“Oh.” It comes out sad, and Ron nods like she’s said something profound.

“Oh is right.” He shakes his head. “Alright. Gringotts, Hogwarts, and then the snake and the man himself. Easy peasy.”

Ron sits up straight, and nods to himself, and then very seriously looks from Harry to Hermione.

“I want to actually apologise, first. So, I’m really sorry for storming off like that. I just felt, I don’t know, useless and confused about Hermione.” He glances up at her, his ears turning red. “I felt stupid the moment I went home. I wasn’t useful there either, just kind of in the way, as my parents wouldn’t let me go out at all, being a target myself. I just kept thinking about how maybe I wouldn’t be as useful as either of you, but at least I could be doing something if I’d just stop to think for two second and, I don’t know, grow up.” He looks rather disgusted with himself, and while Hermione forgave him a while ago, whatever remaining anger that’s left slips away, vapor over water.

“Oh Ron.” She stands and moves over next to him, taking his arm.

Harry sits down next to him, on the other side, and puts his hand on his other shoulder. “I’m glad you worked it out, mate. No reason to hate yourself. And now we can get through this like we always have, like a team.”

Ron grins at them both, before moving his arms wide and pulling them both close to his lanky frame. “I’ll do whatever I can. It’s going to be a lot more satisfying now that we know you don’t have to go too. And I can also chaperone.”

“Chaperone?” Hermione pulls back, away from him, surprised almost, at how nice it feels to make up.

Harry tries to pull back too, but Ron’s arm locks down instead, so that Harry’s face is squished into his armpit.

“Yeah, can’t you two lovebirds get out of hand, go around being disgusting all the time, making kissy faces.” Harry says something, and though it’s heavily muffled, she can still tell it isn’t something nice, and he starts pushing harder at Ron’s side. Hermione can feel her cheeks getting hotter.

Ron’s grin takes on a familiar edge to it. “Plus, we can’t have you two running about, making little wizards and witches at a time like this.”

“Ronald Weasley.” She gasps, feels ridiculous, like she’s a character in a Victorian novel, scandalised. Somehow he always brings that out in her.

Harry yells something that she’s fairly certain involves a lot of swear words, before he makes a fist and pulls back, jabbing it sharply into Ron’s ribs, who yells and shoves him back. Harry’s face is bright red, his glasses skewed.

Ron’s rubbing at his side, grimacing. “It’s not right that such a scrawny specky git can pack such a punch.”

“I’ll show you a punch.” Harry lunges forward but Ron flies backward with the hardened reflexes of an annoying youngest brother.

And they all squabble for a while, and Hermione feels like maybe none of them have stopped being eleven.

Harry goes to the loo, eventually, and Hermione stands to ask Kreacher about dinner. But Ron put’s his arm out, wordlessly stopping her from leaving the room, frowns down at her. He speaks in a low tone. “He seems happy.”

“He does, doesn’t he?”

“But you said he almost died twice, getting the soul out?” He looks concerned. “I didn’t want to bring the mood down by asking, but what happened?”

She almost forgot how nice it was, to have someone to share her Harry related worries with.

“He won’t tell me. I really thought - I really thought that he was dead, for a minute there, and all I could do was sit and watch.” Her voice wavers, and Ron puts a hand on her shoulder. “It was really, really -” The words won’t seem to come out.

“I’m sorry I wasn’t there.” Ron’s voice is soft.

She considers him. It would have been nice, better, to have someone there, she thinks, so that she wouldn’t know, in her heart of hearts, what true, pure, loneliness is. But it’s too late for that now.

“I’ll do better.” He says it with a quiet kind of certainty in his voice. And she believes him.

She nods, looking into the middle distance. “He won’t tell me what he saw, what happened. He just says that it’s not important anymore. And you know, I haven’t wanted to push it either, because he does seem happier. Just - I know don’t - lighter, somehow.”

“We’ll keep an eye on him, just like we always do.”

They share a look of determination, just as Harry comes out of the bathroom. He glances at their serious faces, and it’s like he knows exactly what they were talking about. His face stiffens, and then he kind of shrugs to himself, and clapping his hands together, asks, “So, what’s for dinner?”

She knows it will come up again, one way or another, but for now, she just gives him a small smile and asks for Kreacher.

Sometimes it’s best to move on.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am looking at 2-3 more chapters after this one, just a heads up.


	22. And where two raging fires meet together, they do consume the thing that feeds their fury

The hunt for the remaining Horcruxes went something like this for one Mr Ron Billius Weasley.

“Hey Ron, do you mind looking through these notes from Bill about Gringotts?”

“Hey, would you mind double checking the potion ingredients, just to make sure that we have everything for the Polyjuice? Yes, of course I’ve already checked, but I just want a different eye to look it over.”

“Ron, do you think that book is in the library? Do you mind looking for me?”

He would usually look at Hermione very suspiciously if he had heard those questions from her at any other part of their friendship. The Hermione he knew wouldn’t ever have asked him to do those things. But the Hermione he knew wasn’t sucking face with Harry whenever there' a spare moment.

They're relentless. He feels sorry, deeply, for everyone in the Gryffindor common room for his and Lavender behavior, 6th year. He understands now. He repents, but yet, there they are. Grinning at each other. Harry winks at her from across the room sometimes, nauseating.

He thinks they might be worse than he and Lavender were, really. Because at least they were just overly enthusiastic in exploring the number of ways they could stick their tongues in each other’s faces. Harry and Hermione, outside of the smallest of pecks, actually don’t kiss in front of him.

She doesn’t sit in his lap, he doesn’t pull her close all the time. They hold hands a lot, but not in a very showy kind of way. They don’t make cooing sounds and call each other babe all the time. In a lot of ways it’s all just the same, Hermione rolling her eyes to the ceiling, silently pleading for patience as he and Harry snort over how a potion has to use both shagbark and cuckhold herb.

What it really is, is how they look at each other. Their eyes met across the room, little grins come to their faces, and they just seem...lighter, happier, somehow. Less giddy, less a childish fit of passion, the way two teenagers should be looking, but steadier. Surer. Like time is spreading out before them, and they can stroll together, take anything as it comes. After all, the war is still raging on and nothing at all is guaranteed.

But certain, necessary, immediate death is no longer guaranteed. And for them, and for Ron too, in a different way, it means the difference between a clock ticking down the time and the possibility of anything. Harry doesn’t have to die. And now anything is possible, his life, though still steeped in danger, no longer must end there.

The unknown tastes like eternity, smooth and sweet, and they smile it to each other across the room.

So yeah, slightly more personal than some tonsil tennis.

Eventually, they no longer have to make up excuses for him to leave. He just understands that when the looks linger, just go do something else for a bit.

And as the months wear on and the plan to work with a Goblin of Bill’s acquaintance starts taking a terrifying shape, he considers himself a pro at reading the room and finding some sort of solitary activity.

One time though he realises that he left his wand in the other room. He doesn’t want to leave it there for a couple of reasons. One, it just isn’t wise to be anywhere without your wand and two, there is a book about Gringotts’ traps up on a high shelf and frankly he doesn’t want to drag the ladder from the clear other side of the room over to it. So.

He sighs, braces himself as he rounds the corner, prepared to cough loudly and grimace his way through the image of his two friends pulling apart like two wet plungers.

But just as he takes in a deep breath to cough, he pauses and looks. They are just standing by the fireplace, leaning against the mantelpiece. Hermione is laughing lightly at something, Harry has the very tips of her hair in his fingers, and he’s slowly, absently, wrapping one finger with it. He leans forward and lightly kisses her forehead as she’s saying something, and she pauses, and Harry shrugs, and they continue talking, smiling all the while.

_Oh. Alright then. But I want to be the best man at the wedding, and at least one of their children will have to have the middle name Billius. Can you be godfather to more than one child? Or are they supposed to be different godparents for each, I’ve never been very clear on that._

Ron clears his throat. Harry and Hermione start a little, clearly being pulled from their own little world.

“Sorry. Forgot my wand.”

Harry frowns at him, but Hermione just sighs and steps away. “We should really get back on topic anyway, thanks Ron.”

“Yeah. Thanks Ron.” Harry’s tone is rather different to hers as they turn towards the library.

They work with Griphook, who is looking for the sword of Gryffindor that Bellatrix is rumored to have stored in her vault. He doesn’t trust them, is a touch bitter about the Ministry’s increasing harshness towards Goblins. He knows that they aren’t all the same, that they aren’t all on the same side, but he doesn’t seem to fully believe it on some level. And so when the sword is a fake, he leaves them there to rot.

But they don’t rot. Instead they are gasping for air by a lake as they watch a pale and scarred dragon fly away.

Shivering in the early winter air, they eventually gain their breath, dry their clothes. Harry places the cup next to the locket and they start to hum, a dissonant sort of sound that grates and puts everyone on edge and is also, terribly, terribly sad at the same time. Harry stuffs them into the pouch Hagrid gave to him.

Harry sighs, a puff of air spiraling out in front of him. “Would you both like to know what happened when I took the potion?”

They both nod, and Ron tries to glance at Hermione, but she’s staring too intentionally at Harry. They both take a second to put heating charms on themselves, looking at their friend as he stares across the lake.

“I saw a bunch of stuff- It’s not important. I mean it is, or it was, but it’s not anymore. That’s really what I learned. All of my past brought me here, to now, and it mattered, and doesn’t have to stop being important, but it’s about, I don’t know how to explain, it’s about moving through it. That’s already all happened, and it’s about getting through it and moving on, and - and I don’t know, giving a shit about what’s my life now, I suppose. Because when I got stuck, I almost died, that first time that I almost died while looking for Voldemort’s soul. I needed to talk to Dumbledore, but I didn’t want to. But I had to. It was- it was all rather difficult. It didn’t seem to matter how much it was in my own head, that I knew it wasn’t really real. It was real enough, it was one of- that whole thing was one of the hardest- What I’m saying is that it took real courage to get through, almost more than I had. And You-Know-Who is a coward. I mean, really, a just tremendous coward.

“The Horcruxes are all loops- the things you don’t want to face, memories you don’t want to understand. So I had to destroy his too, because he never will. And while I was doing it, I saw hell. Or if it wasn’t hell, then hell should be replaced with what I saw.” He pauses, swallows, the lingering shadow that sometimes layers his otherwise lighter face passes over him, but it slides away, and he just looks contemplative, somber, across the lake. He shakes his head and looks at them instead. “And hell is a deep cold, not just nothing, but the opposite of being, of - of connection. And he did it to himself. He tore apart his own soul so that he can’t move on, so that they can’t leave, but they can’t just be either. It’s really, really horrifying. I would die a thousand times, over and over, have everyone on earth die with their soul intact then have them have that be their future. And so.” He pulls the pouch away from himself, a little, frowning down at it. “And so - I guess. I just wanted you two to understand what it means. What it means when we kill these things. And we have to. But it’s really - It’s really horrifying. I wish. I don’t know. He killed my parents. I watched him kill my parents over and over again, his own memory-”

Horrified sounds leave him, and he hears it echoed from Hermione, she moves towards Harry, but he just waves his hands in front of him, almost impatient. “Wait. That’s not. I just need to get this out. I watched him kill them, and I killed him, at least once, just out of pure fury. He’s a monster and a coward. I just wish he hadn’t done this to himself. I wish he could fix it somehow. Because I just can’t wish this on anyone. I kind of hope that they soul pieces sort of just float around and eventually find each other, so he can go to regular hell, or whatever happens to people like him.”

He’s looking at them with a pleading sort of expression. “I’ve just been carrying it around. I wanted to explain, at least a little, what this idiot has done to himself. Everything else makes sense, everything else just feels better, everything feels so much better now. But this is just a sad ugliness. And that arrogant coward doesn’t even know, doesn’t understand what he’s done. And he won’t, not until it’s too late. If he understood even just a little, if he regretted it at all- But- that’s just not in him anymore.”

He stands, and they do too. He tucks the pouch back unto his shirt. “What I’m really getting at is that we should finish this quickly and be done with the evil bastard.”

He knows what Harry just said was important. He knows it in his bones. But he doesn’t really understand. And he’s not sure if he wants to. He’s sad that Harry does. And though Harry seems bothered by it, he’s pretty okay with You-Know-Who finding out.

* * *

They apparate into Hogsmeade, they get pulled quickly into Hog’s Head Inn, they talk with Dumbledore’s brother. It’s all moving very fast, and Hermione is frightened of what might happen next, but some part of her mind is still on Harry, his pleading expression, the lake shimmering behind him.

It doesn’t really make sense to her. She knows Harry is a good person, one of the best people in this whole world probably, though she knows she’s a little biased. There is a line though, between being a good person and being so understanding, so sweet, that it all becomes meaningless. A person who says that they wish Voldemort would turn over a new leaf would be, in Hermione’s opinion, an idiot. Past nice into not understanding the gravity of situations, past kind into a strange kind of cruelty, that they wouldn’t also be angry at what he’s done and who he is and what he stands for. It would seem empty and shallow.

That wasn’t what that was. That wasn’t Harry trying his hardest to be saint-like. He isn’t some simpering sheltered idiot who doesn’t understand. No one understands better than him.

But that doesn’t change what she saw, there.

Genuine pity.

Harry Potter genuinely pitties Voldemort. He knows that he has to be stopped, he plans to stop him. He knows he’s evil. She’s still reeling at the idea that he witnessed his parents getting murdered, not just once but over and over again.

And it just doesn’t make sense to her, how he has that in him for such a person. 

She knows it does to him. He was saying something important, she knows that in her bones. She wants to understand, she doesn’t want to leave him there by himself, that knowledge alone on his shoulders. But right now, she doesn’t understand. She wants to, very much.

They go through a painting. And for the first time since Harry’s spoken by the lake, she’s pulled away from her thoughts on it.

Because they’re there, all her friends. Most of them. They’re standing in a group, Neville is saying something emphatically when he turns to look at them and his face pales.

The rest turn to look as well. Pandemonium ensues. She doesn’t think she’s hugged so many people in her life. Eventually the noise dies down, and they are all looking at them. Or more specifically, Harry.

And Harry looks uncomfortable, puts his hand on the back of his neck. But then he shakes his head and scoffs a little to himself. He shoulders square, and he’s looking at everyone, taking turns looking at them in the eye. “Right. So. You-Know-Who cut his soul up into little pieces and placed them here and there. He can’t die until they are all gone. We’ve got two in here.” He taps the pouch hanging from his neck. “There is one in this very room, actually, then there is one in a snake that he always has with him, and then himself, of course. There were a couple of other ones, but they’re already gone. So, what I’m thinking is that we get this room changed around and you all can help me find Ravenclaw’s diadem, then we’re going to think about how to destroy these. But we should have some people getting all the teachers, whoever needs to know, ready, because I have a feeling that he’s going to know pretty soon what’s happening and Hogwarts needs to get ready for whenever he shows up here.”

Seamus starts tentatively raising his hand in the middle of the crowd, then seems to shake his head at himself and takes a different approach. “Oi. Does that mean that he can feel when the soul bits are being killed? How does he know?”

Harry sighs. “I think he kind of knows, but not really. No, the clue will be that we broke into the vault in Gringotts where one of them was hidden and then escaped on the back of a dragon.”

“What?” Lavender sways where she’s standing.

“Yeah, we exploded out through the roof, it was mad.” Ron looks a little amazed, like he hadn’t just done it a few hours ago, himself.

Neville shakes his head, puts his hands to his face. “What - Why - You three are always so. That’s a story. Completely barking.” Then he stops, takes a breath. “Alright, you heard them. Harry, if you’d think about what room it’s in?”

It doesn’t take long. Hermione doesn’t feel like she’s even had a breath. She woke up this morning, had eggs and toast, robbed a bank, and now, in the same day, here she is, holding the Diadem that Ginny found and handed over like she was passing a rotting corpse of a rat.

The group resembles. Luna asks, almost absently, “So. How do we destroy these?”

Harry’s mouth falls open. There’s silence.

“You don’t know how to destroy them?” Seamus is incredulous.

“We hadn’t gotten to that part yet!” Ron’s scratching at the back of his head.

Hermione takes a deep breath. “Yes. I mean, kind of. I’ve been practising a little. A lot, just the canceling charm, of course, so I don’t really know if I can do it. But I figured I should at least try. I mean, we have no idea what else to do.”

Everyone’s staring at her now. Ron and Harry the most, Harry starts shaking his head, aghast at this thought she’s been keeping to herself, lost at what it might mean.

“Fiendfyre.”

The whole room gasps, and for a second Hermione feels like she’s doing a very dramatic play.

“It’s the only thing we know will work-”

“Hermione, that could burn down the whole castle-”

“That’s dark magic, that is, you really have to know how to concentrate-”

“What on earth is FiendFyre-”

“Just listen, there’s a charm to -”

“I don’t think that it’s worth killing everyone in the castle to get rid of some of his soul, I mean-”

“Please just listen, there is a charm to-”

“Hey, if it really starts going, maybe we could just throw the bastard and his snake in the bonfire too-”

“LISTEN TO ME. NOW.” Hermione’s never tried for a shouting sort of authoritative voice before. It doesn’t quite work, a bit more screechy than she was hoping for. It does the job though.

“As I was saying. I think that everyone should move on to part B of this plan and get the forces rallied. I’m going to ask the room for the safest place possible to try this spell, give it a go, and hopefully destroy these. There’s a charm to cease the fire that I’ve been practising. So. That’s what’s going to happen. If that fails, everyone leaves this room immediately. The room itself should shut it down before it can spread further. Clear?”

There’s a pause, solemn nods. The rest of the group wishes her luck and then gather around the gold coins she made for the DA and by the painting they came through.

Hermione concentrates, and a small stone door appears in the wall. Harry stands next to her. “I’ll go with you.”

Ron stands behind him, nodding. She feels a swell of affection, but shakes her head.

“Why would you do that? You can’t help with the spell.”

“But maybe we can help you get out of the room.”

“No-”

“Look, I’m not really asking. You go, I go.” Harry has a stubborn set to his eyebrows.

She really doesn’t want to try alone, but - “I can’t risk it.”

“I’ll just sneak in, anyway, you know I’m coming with.”

“I’ll lock the door behind me.”

“That would be incredibly stupid.”

“So don’t make me do that then.”

Harry’s scowling now. She leans closer, whispers in his ear. “It’s my turn now.”

He clutches at her elbows. “I don’t like it.”

“I never did either. It’ll be fine, Harry. Just let me try.”

His scowl changes shape, looks more inward. He pulls out the cup and the locket and hands them to her, slowly, reluctantly. “Maybe I can think of something else.”

“We don’t have time.”

Ron scoops her up in a hug, mutters in her ear. “Neither of us would be letting this happen at all if we both didn’t know you’re the best witch either of us has ever met, you know?”

Hermione pulls back, smiles up at him. “Neither of you let me do anything, to be clear.”

Ron snorts.

Harry is silent, his scowl now muted, flattened into a grimace. He walks with her to the stone door. “If you don’t come out, I’m going to go in there.”

She reaches up, touches his check. “Don’t be stupid.”

He shrugs, “You know I can’t help myself.”

“I’ll be fine.” She sounds almost confident, even to herself.

“I know.” He leans down, kisses her lightly. There’s a gasp somewhere behind them that sounds a lot like Lavender.

She grins up at him before turning towards the door.

On the other side is just a large stone room. But there is a heavy sort of magic encasing every stone. She touches the wall, feels something, almost tangible, but not quite. The room must be very fortified. She places the Horcruxes down carefully.

She takes a deep breath and says the spell clearly.

Out bursts a life, a fire, rage and power, certainty, one purpose, clear and true, to consume, to destroy, to eat everything in its path. She has almost never felt something with one whole heart before the way this fire has. It’s uncomplicatedness is almost beautiful, somehow entrancing, and some part of her wants to succumb to it, the same way some part of her wants to walk into storms she sees coming the distance. Next to it, she is nothing.

But she has felt something with her whole heart before, something stronger than this fire, and she holds on to it, even as her heart beats with the desire for destruction, guided by the perfect intentions of this living creature she just pulled forward.

It struggles for a minute, it wants to turn into a horse, into an eagle, but it doesn’t, and she holds and holds, and eventually it shifts and settles, and in front of her is a huge flaming sword. She laughs, something primal, complete, and she swings her arm down, and the sword follows, and slices through the Horcruxes with ease. They bellow and shriek, the sound terrible. The door bursts open behind her, and she glances back to Harry’s terrified face, sees how he looks amazed, transfixed, by the swords burning in front of her, the burnt empty carcasses of perverted valuable historical artifacts on the floor.

Hermione turns forward, concentrates, and the fire burns out, ceases, it’s not even too hard, as the spell never got away from her to begin with.

The room is hot with gone flames. There is a strange metallic smell in the air.

Harry steps into the room, grin spreading wider and wider, “Massive-Firey-Sword-Woman.”

Hermione smiles back, “That’s right.” She flips her hair over her shoulder.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright. I brushed right over a lot of stuff. Just a ton of stuff that I didn’t really care to get into. Luna hasn’t been kidnapped yet, and Griphook hasn’t either, so I just did some hand-waving. It kind of happened like canon? Don’t think too much on it, but if anything is genuinely confusing you in a, I don’t understand what happened, kind of way, and not in a, hey, that’s a plot hole, because if they did that now, then the other thing couldn’t have happened until later because in the books, etc., kind of way, please do let me know! One more chapter, btw!


	23. O no, it is an ever-fixed mark That looks on tempests and is never shaken

Voldemort seems unhinged, pacing, his voice holding none of the smooth contained fury he usually has, instead he speaks in stops and starts, shouting and muttering in turns, a fire burning too quickly through fuel. The scariest thing about him was the malevolent intelligence in his gleaming eyes, even as a bodiless spirit speaking out of the back of another man’s head, it was there, something calculating.

But he doesn’t seem to be calculating right now. He doesn’t seem capable of it.

Harry can’t help but think of the terror he felt when his own killing curse blew up in face, the white light he didn’t understand coating his world, and then nothing but pain and terror. He thinks of the panic and fear in his eyes as Harry killed off the last part of that bit of soul.

He knows. He knows he’s mortal. He can feel the only remaining withered and bleeding stump of his own soul, and it calls and pleads for death, to follow the rest, as if one part of the soul leaves, the rest can only want to follow.

Voldemort is terrified, because he pleads for death, but fears it above all else.

Harry can’t believe this man has done this to himself.

Everything has moved very fast. After Hermione destroyed three of the Horcruxes, the room rapidly filled with people; Dean, Fred and George, Mr. and Mrs. Weasley, more and more keep pouring through. Remus comes, says that Tonks couldn’t come because she’s pregnant, and there was a brief moment of excitement, and clapping of backs, and congratulations. He was asked to be godfather, he wants to be. The whole world lays out before him, a life full of meaning. He has to win.

And Voldemort comes, his voice hissing painfully into their ears. He just wants Harry, there’s no reason to bring everyone else into this. Come out to the Forbidden Forest.

Harry ignores this. He asks for help and readily receives it. Ron pauses for a second, asks the room for anything that might be of use. The room supplies them with potions for luck, healing potions, ruins they aren’t sure the use of, and the Sorting Hat.

McGonagall subdues Snape in a brief duel. The other professors organise to keep the students safe, the older ones who want to fight are allowed.

And they move as a group out to the forest.

Voldemort monologues, it doesn't entirely make sense. It seems like he’s trying to be persuasive, but there’s something wrong, off, like watching a usually steady hand draw a disjointed and shaky line.

Nevilles suddenly gasps, pulls a sword out of the Hat that he’s carried down. There’s a pause, a brief silence, and then he walks forward, brings the sword down with a strange ease, as though he’s always done this, and lobs Nagini’s head clear off.

Voldemort strikes him down with some strange spell that leaves Neville screaming and screaming on the cold winter ground. It looks like his skin is slowly peeling off.

Chaos ensues. Hermione ducks down, pulls out one of the potions the room gave them, spells are benign shouted out, a tree lights on fire.

And here Harry stands, battle waging around them, spells going fast. And Voldemort knows that this is it.

It’s all clear to him now. He doesn’t need to do anything. He just watches with passive eyes as Voldemort screams and mutters, curses and scoffs. Eventually he stops, only a couple of meters away. He looks calmer now.

“I’m going to kill you, Harry Potter. Do you have any last words to say?”

Harry sighs. He knows it’s pointless, but that feeling, that endless cold of nothing that Voldemort has subjected himself to pulls at him, a memory he can’t quite shake. He wouldn’t wish it on anyone.

“Try for some remorse, Tom Riddle. Just try. It doesn’t need to be perfect, even the attempt is enough, you moron. You unending idiot. Just try, if there is anything in there that can, just pull for it. It’s all you can do.”

He expects Voldemort to scoff. But he doesn’t. He blinks slowly at him. There’s something like fear there, a moment of understanding. But then it’s gone. Instead he smirks, and Harry knows it’s too late, there is no more Tom Riddle, there is only Voldemort. “I will figure out a new way. But there is nothing left for you, Harry Potter. No more mother’s to die for you. No more little tricks of better wizards to protect you. You will die, and I will live on.”

Tom Riddle was a person. A twisted, vile person, but a person. Voldemort is not. He is a Horcrux now.

And so he raises his wand to Harry’s forehead, and spits out the Killing Curse, the only thing he knows, seeking the familiar sense of power, because he is a Horcrux, and all Horcuxes can do is loop.

He doesn’t have that power anymore. His own incompleteness is nothing in comparison to Harry’s wholeness. His bleeding soul has nothing to even reach out to anymore, even just distant suffering of the other pieces of souls locked away in unnatural bodies. It longs for death.

And the killing curse washes over him, a cold light, a shiver in the night, but it curls back onto itself, a fog retreating back from the water’s edge in the early dawn light.

And then it wraps around Voldemort, a strange emerald fog, a small storm with little green lighting shooting all through it.

Harry, not for the first time, watches as Voldemort’s eyes fill with horror and pain. And there is nothing.

He’s body drops to the forest floor, a marionette with its strings cut, his limbs at unnatural angles, he’s bent over himself strangely. It’s not very dignified. It is, in it’s odd way, the most human Harry’s ever seen him.

He waits, and the battle slows, then stops, around him. Soon there’s nothing but silence and the crackling sound of the tree on fire.

It makes him think of the time he got in trouble for shoving another student off the climbing frame in primary. He was eight, maybe nine years old. The boy was named Ben, and at first he was really nice to Harry. He was new and just seemed very nervous to make friends. But he figured out pretty quickly that Harry was the wrong person to talk to for that aim. Dudley informed Ben of Harry’s status as the smelly loser none of them talked to.

Ben quickly realised that he could much more easily make friends by being mean to Harry.

After Dudley, he soon became Harry’s biggest bully. He would happily tell Dudley and his friends where Harry was hiding, as they were in the same class. Sometimes he was even allowed to join in on the privilege of Harry Hunting. Sometimes he would try to gain points by making it his own sport.

But the thing was, Ben had asthma and Harry was a very fast runner. Harry could see how Ben’s chasing after him was affecting his health. He would wheeze and cough sometimes. Sometimes he looked faint. Harry just wanted to tell him to give it up. That Ben was never going to be accepted by Dudley and his gang no matter how much he tried to beat Harry up.

One chilly day, he was at it again. Harry stopped sprinting at some point, and was sort of going at a jog. He could hear Ben gasping some distance behind him. He yelled back at him to stop running after him and take a break.

Piers heard this and laughed, shouted at Ben to use the inhaler his mummy gave him.

This just made Ben run harder. Harry sighed, ran over the climbing frame, going right to the top. He looked down, watching as Ben caught up. His breathing did sound really bad. He looked very pale as he stared meanly up at Harry and started to try and climb up.

“I don’t think you should be doing that. Just stay down there.”

“Shut. Up. You-” He shakes his head, takes huge gulping breaths, “You. S-Smelly. Prig.”

Harry watches as Ben climbs up, his breathing sounding worse and worse. He reaches out to grab his shoulder just as Ben’s eyes roll and he goes limp.

Looking back on it, he only fell maybe a little more than a meter. But at the time it looked like he had been sent flying from a cliff. He could only stare as he landed with a firm thud, making terrible wheezing sounds. A teacher ran over, a crowd of children formed. They told them that Harry had pushed him off.

The school called the Dursleys. He didn’t leave the cupboard or eat all weekend.

People had been angry that time, this time he thinks that the reaction will be rather more happy. But the fact remains, it certainly looks like he did something, but in fact had not.

Voldemort had killed himself in a way that only Voldemort could.

He hears shrieking. It’s Bellatrix. She raises his wand to him. But Mrs. Weasley strikes her down at once. Then a lot happens, again, very quickly. Immediately the Death Eaters start apparating away in huge droves. Some stand confused, pulling off masks and blinking into the dying light of the day, having no idea how they got there. Others continue to fight, but are quickly brought down.

Everyone gathers around him, there’s cheering and hugging, and people asking if everyone is alright. Hermione’s there, and Ron, he pulls them both close and whispers, “What a long day, huh?”

They laugh, a light sound that seems to lift up above them, something good and easy, and for a second everything is perfect.

That feeling doesn’t last. Everyone isn’t alright. Neville, Lavender, Mr. Weasley, and Remus are all dead. The Ministry is in shambles. People are waking from the Imperius curse. There are still desperate displaced Muggleborn witches and wizards lining the streets of Diagon Alley.

  
Everything is a mess, new, terrible pain mixes with old hurts, and in the bright light of the following days the wounds that inflect the wizarding world are clear and brutal. There is much cleaning to do, healing to start, work to be done.

But Harry knows, in his bones, that the only thing to do is move forward, unflinching, and try.

Harry wakes up, the glare from the Order of Merlin bouncing off the light coming in through the gapes of the curtain and shining directly into his eyes. He stares at it, frowning. He stretches, gets up, and scratching at the back of his neck looks at it. It’s mixed in with a lot of other junk that used to be in the bottom desk drawer, some empty potion vials, a dried out pot of ink, a perfectly good looking quill he forgot he had, some owl pellets.

“Oh good, you’re up.” Hermione’s wearing jeans and one of his old t-shirts, her hair up in a very loose bun. “I thought you were going to sleep forever. I figure it was time to do a spot of spring cleaning. Would you help?”

Harry rubes at his eyes and blinks at her. He kind of grunts in agreement. She grins at him, comes in close and kisses the corner of his mouth. “You’re very cute when you’re just waking up.”

He gives her a happy sounding sort of grunt and grins at her laugh as he goes downstairs to have some coffee, still just in his pants.

He’s sipping it, just starting to feel like a thinking person again when the fire turns green and Ron pops out, takes one look at him and winces, closing his eyes. “C’mon mate, put some trousers on.”

“I’m not the one just flooing into other people’s houses. You’d think you’d have learned your lesson that one time you came in here and Hermione and I were-”

“Arg, shut up. I almost burnt that memory entirely from my brain and you had to bring it up again.”

“Do a curtsy call first, then, you twit.”

Ron shakes his head, then looks over at him, getting over Harry’s lack of dress in light of more important things. “Tell me it’s not true.”

“What’s not true?”

“What the newspapers are saying.”

“You’re going to need to be a little more straightforward than that mate. I mean, the other day a reporter said that I had soup and a sandwich for lunch at the new place where Fortescue’s was. Which is true. It was alright, I’d eat there again, but probably not go out of my way or anything. But there was another article saying that I was working on a conspiracy to take over the Ministry with the Goblins, which isn’t true, seeing as I’m pretty sure the Goblins still want to murder me for that whole flying a dragon through their ceiling thing.”

“They’re saying that you’re going to quit Quidditch.”

Harry frowns down into his coffee, takes a sip, and mutters. “How did they hear about that already?”

“What? So it’s true? Why didn’t you tell me? Why’d I have to learn from the newspaper, you prat?”

Harry sighs, looks over at Ron’s indignant face. “I only decided yesterday, after the contract renewal meeting.”

Ron sits down at the table, incredulous now. “Did they give you bad terms?”

Harry pours him a glass as well and sits too. “Of course not. But the schedule is more of the same, and, I don’t know, I just want to be home more. I mean, part of why I left the Aurors is because they were just all commitment all the time.”

“Why’d you want to be home more? I mean Hermione-”

“Oh. Hello Ron. No courtesy call again I see. At least this time we weren’t-”

“Ahhhh, Ah, ah. Stop. Just stop. I just had to hear it for myself.”

Hermione walks around the edge of the table, pours herself a glass of water and sits down next Harry. “Hear what?”

“If my best mate, my brother in all but blood, has betrayed me and the rest of this United Kingdom.”

She pauses, looks over at Harry with raised eyebrows. “How do they already know that you’ve quit?”

Harry shrugs. “Must have leaked somehow. I hope someone at least got a nice pay off for it.”

Ron makes a choking sound. “That’s not what’s important-”

“You’re right, my private information being sold off to the highest bidder is very boring-”

“What’s important is, how could you? They’re the best team in the league because of you, what are they going to do now? Why have you forsaken us?”

Harry rolls his eyes to the ceiling. “As I was saying, the schedule is just too crazy, just like it was with the aurors. I hardly get to see Teddy, and Hermione’s always so busy sometimes we don’t get to say more than Good Morning or Goodnight on any given day.”

Ron flops his head dramatically onto his arms. “What’s that matter when victory in Quidditch is at stake.”

Hermione reaches forward and flicks Ron on the head.

He grumbles, rubbing at the spot.

“Plus, I’m getting old.”

Ron blinks at him. “What? You’re not even thirty yet.”

“Thirty might as well be a grandfather in Quidditch years.”

“Not for seekers.” He shrugs.

Harry slaps his hand on the table. “Why does everyone think that? Just because I’m not getting tackled off of my broom by other chaser all the time doesn’t mean that it hasn’t been a solid five years of being hit by bludgers every other day. I’m old now Ron. “

“There are plenty of older seekers-”

“My wrist made a cracking sound when I picked up a book the other day-”

“Barnaby is nearing forty, even-”

“It wasn’t even a hardcover. And Barnaby isn’t nearing forty! He’s only twenty seven-”

“What? No way!”

“Yeah, poor fellow just gets really stressed out with pressure, it makes him look older-”

“Point is, you got lots of life left in you-”

“I groan when I stand up now, it’s ridiculous. Besides, I’m ready to move on.”

Ron stares at him for a long moment, then twirls his coffee while pouting. “Fine. Alright. Go ahead, live your life, be happy, whatever.”

Harry grins at him. “Cheers.”

“What are you going to do now, then?” Ron looks like he’s getting over it, though the question comes out a touch snarky still.

Harry glances at Hermione, who gives him an encouraging smile. “I’m, I’m actually considering teaching Defense over at Hogwarts.”

Ron’s eyebrows raise in surprise, but then he starts nodding. “Makes sense, really.”

“Really?” Harry felt like people were going to think that this was coming from out of nowhere.

“Yeah, I mean, you’re obviously qualified, what with you being an auror for seven years, and the whole defeating Voldemort thing-

“Didn’t defeat him-”

“Plus you were really good at teaching with the DA, really patient, kept things interesting. I mean, I’ll never forgive you for betraying the sport of Quidditch like this, but it does seem like a really good move.”

“Thank you for your blessing, it means a lot Ron.”

“Shove off. I need to head off, I have to break the news to Fred and George. I’d watch yourself for a while around them, I have a feeling they’ll not be pleased.”

“Joy.”

“I’ll see you two for the family dinner Sunday, right?”

“Of course, are you bringing the dessert this time or are we supposed to?” Hermione puts her glass in the sink, talking to him over her shoulder. 

Ron frowns, staring down at the pot of floo powder and thinking. “I think it’s your turn.”

Hermione grins, nodding, and they wave as he spins away.

She turns to look at him. “It’s definitely his turn, but I figured I’d bring it up just to make him feel guilty for foisting it off on to us again, the lazy git.”

Harry smiles at her, pulling her closer. “Do you think I’m making a mistake?”

Hermione kisses him on the lips, sweetly, briefly. Sometimes he’s a little startled at how nice it is still, like he’s still seventeen and understanding what kissing is all about for the first time.

He rests his head on her shoulder, and breaths deep.

Her voice is soft above him, her lips close to his ear. “Of course I don’t think it’s a mistake.”

“But what if I miss Quidditch?”

“Then we’ll see about getting you back into it. But I don’t think you will. Maybe sometimes you’ll miss it, the way you missed some parts about being an Auror, but were definitely happier playing Quidditch. I know I’m happier in Magical Law Enforcement now that I’ve worked on Elf’s rights in the Magical Creatures department. Life is a journey."

Harry hums into her neck and closes his eyes. He thinks about things that have changed, the fame that’s reached a different level, getting closer with Tonks and Teddy, the grief that lingers over the Weasley household, his careers, how his and Hermione’s relationship has deepen and grew, how he walks around with it, that knowledge that he has a person on his side, really family, wherever he goes. Whatever shape his life is taking, however it changes, however dark moments get, he knows his life, every panel of it, is colored and shaded with love.

And that’s enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey. You know, to anyone who has been, or is currently, stuck in any kind of loop with themselves, just know that I really do think it takes an incredible amount of courage to process, to have those conversations with yourself, to understand what’s gotten you stuck to begin with. Facing that fear, whatever it is, however it’s taking shape in you, is the bravest thing I can think of. None of us are Voldemort, no matter whatever things we have done, and we can walk through it, however long it takes, however slow the walk. And to anybody who gets what the hell I’m talking about, though I didn’t know it when I started this, this fic is dedicated to you. 
> 
> You’ll feel so much lighter, once you do.


End file.
